


In Hades' House

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:23:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1928229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bruce is captured and tortured by a mysterious enemy, Clark is there to help him put the pieces back together. But even Clark can't fix everything. </p><p>This is a multi-chapter, two-part work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a curious thing, how hard hope was to kill.

He had been in plenty of situations before that were similarly bleak. Certainly he had been tortured before. So it was hard to know what was different about this one; what small, perhaps particular thing made him say, _this one I am not coming out of_. Perhaps it was his torturer's lack of joy. A gleeful torturer was an interested torturer, and an interested torturer was not one who wanted the fun to end anytime soon. 

What a sad, whimpering rag he must have become, if he couldn't even hold the attention of a torturer, these days. 

It hadn't been like that last week. Or was it not so much as a week? Was it yesterday? Or the day before? He had lost track of the days, and maybe his pain-maddened mind had expanded hours into days, or contracted days into minutes; he no longer knew. But his guess would be a week. He would ask Jason when he came back, or Dick. If only he could be certain it was them, at this point, and not a hallucination. If only he could be certain they were safe.

"Safe," the voice said. He didn't think he had been talking out loud, but he was clearly not in control of himself any more. " _Safe_. It's like you haven't even been paying any attention, haven't tried to learn anything from our talks down here. Bruce. Have you even been listening?"

His brain struggled to make sense of that. Something about it was alarming. Ah, his name. The voice had said his name. Well. When you were hanging naked from a meathook in the ceiling, it was probably a solid assumption your secret identity was shot to hell. But. . . _down_ here? Where was down? Or up, for that matter? He could calculate better if he didn't have the distinct impression — if he didn't know for a fact — that he had worked it all out before. He had had these answers, just a few days ago, and then they had slipped away. If it was days. Back to that, was he. 

A clammy hand was on his forehead, and he flinched. "That fever's getting worse, isn't it?" The voice was full of genuine concern. "That infection will get you before anything else. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Not that infection's a bad way to go, if you really think about it. It's what I would choose, if I were in your shoes." 

The hand was running over his head now, stroking his hairline tenderly. "Even like this," the voice mused, "you're very pretty. You probably don't like that, do you. Probably you would prefer 'rugged' or something like that. But there it is: do what you like to your body, it's going to be stubbornly pretty. Really, I mean it. It is. Come on, let me see those lovely blue eyes of yours."

The hand was peeling his eyelids open now. The face. . . why couldn't he remember? _Brain injury_ , you idiot, said some crisp part of him. _Aggravated concussion. From the day before yesterday. Brain at its foggiest now. Fever's not helping_. 

Ah. There was the functioning part of his brain. Just like that, the world clicked back into focus. His jailer must have seen it too, because he smiled. "There we are," he whispered. "Pretty boy." Lips grazed his, and it was useful because he could feel, against another set of lips, how cracked were his own. He quickly rearranged his list and put dehydration ahead of concussion and fever as most likely cause of his current incoherence. 

"May I. . . have. . . some water," he managed, and his loudest voice got him only a crackling whisper of sound.

"Of course," said the voice. It was a face like any other—bland, unassuming, pleasant. Something in its proportions stirred a memory of recognition, and he set it aside, knowing it would come when he needed it.

"It's morning, in case you were wondering. Time for us to begin again. Unless you wanted to delay? No? All right, of course you will have your own way. He's ready, bring them in," the face said into some button on a wall. Wall: unpainted concrete, scrubbed clean of any sign. There was a drain in the floor. That was more worrisome than anything else. 

A door he hadn't noticed creaked open: large, rusted. _Down here_ , the voice had said. Yes, there was an odor of dampness here, and something else. He was being swiveled on his hook away from the door, and he didn't see who walked in. He heard chains, and more than one set of feet. The sound of chains being clipped to something: hooks like his? No voices. Who was there? Why couldn't he remember?

The hand was back, caressing his face. It pushed a plastic cup of water against his mouth, and he swallowed it, not able to catch what dribbled out. "You're tired," said the voice, and there was only infinite sympathy, infinite gentleness. "You can't take much more of this—even you. They understand that. Will understand. Why don't you take a break, for the next few hours? It doesn't have to be you, up here. Wouldn't it feel good to lie down for a while, have a rest?"

Bruce was confused. "A—rest?" he asked. 

"Yes, of course. I can give you that. Let one of these boys take your place for a few hours, and you can be curled up over in that corner, sleeping. I'll even have a mattress brought in, so you can get some actual sleep. How does that sound?"

And it was at the words _these boys_ that everything came rushing back in sharp, brutal focus. He swung around and saw them. Dick and Jason. Gagged and tied to their own hooks in the ceiling, but struggling, and the vigor of their struggles told him they were still strong, sound, probably unharmed: it gave him new resolve. "I'm ready," he said, his voice stronger since the water. "Let's go."

"Are you sure?" 

The man had a palm on Dick's abdomen, caressing it. Dick thrashed and made a growling sound in his throat, and the man chuckled. "Look how strong this one is. He's a policeman, isn't he? Didn't you tell me that? I bet he would take your punishment for you. I bet he would be eager to. Shall we ask him? What do you think he would say?" The man had a finger on the gag. 

"Now now," he remonstrated. "This is a yes or no question. One syllable only. That's all you get. Here's your question, so be ready. Will you take his place today?" And he pulled the corner of the gag down, almost coyly. Dick jerked his neck and got his mouth free.

" _Yes_ goddammit _yes_ leavehimaloneyoufuckingfuckerIsaid _yes_ —" The gag was stuffed back in his mouth, muffling his shout. The man looked at Bruce. Why, why couldn't he remember the face? Why couldn't he remember any more than the bits and pieces that kept floating back to him? 

"Your thoughts?" He was cocking his head at Bruce, like he was waiting for his drinks order. "The boy seems game. But it's your call, of course."

Bruce kept his head steady, with an effort. "Let's go," he said. Dick's muffled shouts behind the gag rose, and he was curling his legs up, trying to get enough momentum to move, to swing closer. Jason was just looking at him, and Bruce met his eyes. Jason's eyes were level and unblinking. They didn't flinch. They looked right at him. Those eyes stiffened his spine. 

A collar of sorts was being snapped on his neck. Jason just kept looking at him, and Bruce understood. _Look at me_ , those eyes were saying, _not him, not anything else, just look at me_. 

He paused to consider how truly screwed he must be if Jason Todd was offering him comfort. 

And then thought was erased as a fiery wall crashed into him. The pain crackled his nerves, convulsed his body, tore rough screams from his throat. He didn't know how long it lasted. The electrical impulse could have been thirty seconds, or thirty minutes: the pain was a vortex that sucked time, and he had lost all sense of its passage. He hung limp, and his face was wet. He was upside down, there was no more gravity, he was floating. There was a hand fumbling at his penis, and he tried to flinch away, but wasn't yet in control of his muscles. 

"You pissed yourself again," said the voice. "That happens. I thought you might be too dehydrated for that, but I guess not. It's funny, what electrical current of that level will do to the body." He was being mopped with a towel. "Funny how it makes your body move, isn't it?" The hand was stroking him in long sweeping motions, up and down his side. The voice had gone even more gentle, and there was a throaty quality now. "I like the way your body moves."

The wall of fire collided with him again. But this time there were hands grappling with him, trying to pull him down into the pain. He fought them, fought them hard. It felt like more than one pair of hands, it was the hands of everyone he had ever killed or maimed, everyone he had sent to hell, and they were pulling him down there with him. He choked and fought and kicked. His arms were free, somehow, and he used them to crash an elbow into the hands that tore at him.

" _Clark!_ Clark, Jesus, get in here, I can't hold him!" 

The voice—Dick's voice—shook him to consciousness, beat back the memories of nightmare even before there were strong arms wrapping him that he couldn't fight against, couldn't push away. There was a loud, rasping sound in the room, and it took him a second to realize it was his own breathing. 

"Dark, it's dark," he gasped. 

"I know. I know."

 _Turn on the lights_ , he opened his mouth to say, as he swallowed air against the choking blackness. And then he re-entered the prison of his reality. He stilled his breathing. He stilled his body. "I'm sorry," he said. 

"Shh, it's all right." 

"Did I—hurt Dick?"

A millisecond's hesitation. "He's fine."

"Damian. Did I—is he awake?"

"He's fine too. Alfred's with him."

Somewhere on the bed were sheets, but Bruce had no idea how to find them. The solid body enveloping him ought to feel suffocating. Instead it felt anchoring, like it was the only real thing in the spinning darkness. He turned into it. It wrapped him tighter.

"Go back to sleep, if you can," Clark's voice rumbled next to his ear. Everything in him just wanted to sleep here, where the weight of the darkness didn't press on him quite so heavily. It took most of his strength and all his pride to straighten himself, to detach from the safe harbor of those arms.

"I'm fine," he said, shifting away. The room was righting itself. Nightstand at three o'clock, sheets probably kicked down somewhere near seven or eight o'clock. There would be a glass of water on the other nightstand, at nine o'clock. He reached for it and hit his mark exactly. Small point of pride. 

"Go back to bed," he said. "Tell Dick I'm sorry."

Clark's hand on his back. "I can stay." He should say no, he should wave him off. But if it happened again— _if_ it happened again, who was he kidding? It happened every goddamn time he fell asleep, always the clawing up through the darkness, until he remembered, and fell back into it. 

Dick had been on patrol tonight, Dick needed his rest. He didn't need some freak show keeping him up all night. And Damian—he didn't need a repeat of two nights ago. So Bruce just nodded. A slight jerk of his head, but he knew Clark could read it. 

He curled back into the bed, turned away from Clark. He wouldn't ask, he wouldn't. Clark's hand came to rest on his back: just one hand. An anchor. He knew without being asked, of course he knew. Bruce drew a shuddering breath, and slipped back into the treacherous waters of hated, longed-for sleep. Sleep: where the memories lay in wait for him, circling like sharks.

* * *

The beating was almost predictable, it was so dull. It was pain at a level he could more or less deal with, which should have been his tip-off that this was the prelude to something else. He could even see which direction the swing of the iron rod was coming from next, and could brace himself. The man was clearly bored. After a bit he tossed the rod aside and pulled off his blood-spattered latex gloves, dropping them on the floor. He plopped himself in the dank basement's lone chair. It was an old-fashioned wooden desk chair, with a slatted back. He tipped himself as far back as he could go and wiped his face, studying Bruce, twirling the rod in his fingers.

Bruce studied him right back. He let his mind relax, let it free associate the way it did when there was a puzzle he needed to solve, a knot to pick at. Only his mind's peripheral vision would give him the answers he sought. Average height, average build, light brown hair. Broad cheekbones, deep-set eyes. A face you wouldn't have glanced at twice on the street. The man smirked at him, like he knew what he was thinking. "Don't worry, it will come to you," he said. He spun in the chair to where Dick and Jason were tied.

"Well, what do you make of it, boys? The thing of it is, I'm not much for the upper body strength. It takes someone with real muscle to cause this one much pain. I mean, really, look at him." He picked up the rod again and poked at Bruce with it. "So I've been wondering. Did either of you boys ever have a birthday party? Being raised the way you were, all that money, I'm betting you did. Pony rides and everything, I'd put money on it. So tell me. Ever play piñata?"

He jumped up and pulled a red marker from his pocket. He knelt and began making marks on Bruce's lower legs, on his thigh. One on his back. He straightened and looked Bruce in the eye. "You know what I just did, don't you?"

Bruce tightened his jaw. "You know. I can see it in your eyes. See, I may not have your biceps—and by the way, lovely work there," he said, giving his left one a squeeze, "but I do know a thing or two. Here's a clue: I went to medical school. Does that help you solve your little puzzle? Oh, come on, I've given you everything you need by now, you _have_ to have figured it out." He pitched the marker at the wall in a fit of pique. "I'm getting impatient."

Bruce swallowed, licked his lips. The man leaned forward, a light of eagerness in his eyes. "Yes? You want to take a guess?"

"You. . . remind me of someone I once knew." 

The man gave a slow smile and slapped a hand on his stomach. Bruce shut his eyes, breathing through the pain. The man laughed. "All right, on your feet, young man." He hauled Jason up and snapped a black collar on his neck. He tugged off the gag and unclipped his cuffs, but before Jason could take the swing Bruce saw him preparing, he was felled, clutching at the collar. The man held up a small black box with a red button on it.

"Sorry about that. But that was just a warning, I need you at your best. Nothing like the dose your—I don't even know what you call him, your father? Dad? Pops? Probably not that, huh. But nothing like what he's been getting. Come on now, you can tell me true. What do you call him?"

Jason was struggling up. The man was on the other side of the room now, out of Bruce's range of sight. "The thing is, I think you and he have some issues to work out, am I right? A little good old-fashioned family therapy. I'm a great believer in it. Pick up the crowbar."

Jason looked at it with contempt. "Fuck you," he spat.

"Oh," the man said. "Whoops. Forgot this part." And coming up behind Dick, who strained to reach him, he snapped a collar on his neck too. "Hang on, let me test this one." And Dick went rigid, screamed into his gag. The air left Bruce's lungs in a rush, and his bellow of rage was a hoarse whisper, but it got the man's attention. He took his finger off the button.

"Don't like that, do you," he said. "Well, you'll like this next part even less. Now kid, I've made it easy for you. Look at his right tibia. See that bright red X I've put there? A blow landed exactly there, with precisely the right amount of force, will shatter the tibia. But of course, the tibia's a long bone. If we really want to make sure the job's done right, you'll have to hit it in three different places. Little known medical fact: the tibia, when shattered in those exact three places, can't knit together. Isn't that a fun fact?"

He picked up the crowbar and handed it to Jason. "Do it," he said, his voice soft as silk. "Do it, or I dose him again," he said, with a jerk of the head at Dick. Jason threw the crowbar on the floor. It clattered and echoed. The man raised the remote control, and Dick arched, writhed, groaned against the gag on his mouth. 

"Jason," Bruce managed. " _Jason_."

"You fucker, get your fucking finger off that or I'll—"

"Ah ah ah." He held the remote out of reach, safely across the room from Jason. "Pick it up," the man said, and Jason picked up the crowbar. The man took his finger off the button. He was watching Jason's face avidly, hungrily. Dick's breathing was loud, his body limp. 

"So tell me." The voice was soft, wheedling. "How much more are you going to put him through, you bad bad boy? I mean, you must have mixed emotions about seeing him in pain, am I right? Daddy's little golden boy, the one he always loved best. Sibling relationships are such a challenge in the best of families, and this one. . . well, this is definitely not one of those."

Jason's fist was clenching and unclenching on the crowbar. He was pacing, circling Bruce. His breathing was almost as loud as Dick's.

"Do it," Bruce said. His voice was soft and only for Jason. "Just do it." 

Jason's eyes met his. He saw Jason scan his head, his neck, and he knew Jason was calculating how much of a blow would be required to render him unconscious. Jason was hoping to knock him out first, before he crippled him. He saw the moment when Jason decided against it. With the head trauma he already had, there was no way of knowing if he could survive another cranial blow. 

The little black box was lifted again, but before the button was pushed Jason landed a blow. Not on his leg, in his midsection. Hard enough to knock out his wind, but not hard enough to do any damage. _Jason_ , that won't fool him. He had felt the leashed power in that blow. He knew Jason had the strength for it.

Bruce coughed and spat. "Do what you have to do," he ground out. Jason wasn't looking at him.

It hadn't been enough: the button was pushed, and Dick screamed behind his gag. " _Jason!_ " Bruce shouted. "Jason, do it, goddamn you, _do it_ , do it _now!_ " But Jason was walking away, he was walking to the other side of the room, he was—

And then he was running back, letting the momentum carry him forward, putting every bit of his grace and strength and accuracy into the blow that pushed the scream out Bruce's mouth at last. Dick's screams and his, both of them. He had been wrong, he had been so wrong, he had thought he would black out, and he had not, he was still conscious, God no. "Ah ah ah ah," he panted, hating the tears on his face, God so much pain, he had never, could never. " _Fuck fuck fuck—_ "

The next one landed on the kneecap, and he heard the shatter of bone on that one. He could hear nothing beyond that, couldn't even hear if Dick was all right, if Dick had been saved, because his own screams were so loud.


	2. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories continue to assail Bruce, but Clark has a temporary solution.

Clark had drifted off, but he knew when Bruce moved, and why. He felt the jolt and shudder that told him Bruce was entering wakefulness, and he kept his hand heavy on him, hoping it would be enough. He felt the bed begin to shake. It had not been enough. He edged closer and put his arm around him. Bruce sat up, pushing off the arm, and rubbed at his leg. 

"Dammit," he whispered. Clark saw him reach for the cane. He watched Bruce head to the bathroom. Bruce clutched the doorframe. Clark vaulted up and over the bed and had the vicodin in his palm before Bruce had even turned around. He swallowed them dry. 

"Bad tonight?" Clark said, conversationally. Bruce nodded. He slumped against the doorframe. He was supposed to be wearing at least the cloth brace while he slept, but most nights he did not, these days. He had probably wrenched it earlier, when he had wakened. "Let's get you off it, come on."

"I think—" Bruce waved his hand. "I need to prop it up. I need to take the sofa."

"Probably a good idea. I'll get it ready." The sofa in front of the fireplace was a narrow Victorian affair with rolled arms that were actually the perfect angle for resting pillows on, and the sofa's unforgiving springs gave Bruce more support than the bed. And then, too, he had noticed that the wide expanses of the bed made the waking problem only worse; somehow Bruce did better when he slept in more confined spaces. Bruce took a few halting steps in the direction of the sofa, and stopped, grimacing. It wasn't just bad tonight; it was clearly agony. Maybe if his bedroom weren't the size of a football field, he could manage better.

"Okay, here's where we do the part you don't like," Clark said. 

Bruce whuffed something that might have been a laugh. "If you had any idea how much I don't care anymore," he said, and Clark took that for permission, and scooped him up. He carried him to the sofa, and laid him in it, banking the pillows under the leg in the way that he knew caused Bruce the least amount of pain. 

"You need to get some actual sleep tonight," Bruce said. The vicodin was starting to hit him; Clark could hear it in his voice, not because he was slurring but because for once he didn't sound like he was biting back pain. He made a mental note to check that prescription. Something told him Bruce was not taking as much as he should, for someone less than a month out from getting a metal rod shoved down the lower half of his body.

"I'll sleep in a bit," Clark said. He sat on the floor beside the sofa, leaning his head back near Bruce's. Bruce shifted.

"When are you going back to work?"

The fire sputtered and spat. Alfred had banked it down before bed, but there was still a last log hurling cherry-red sparks at them. The night wasn't cold, but nothing kept Bruce warm these days. "Don't know," Clark said carefully. "I'm on leave, it's not a problem."

"You have a job, and it's not being my nursemaid."

"I know that. Tired of me?"

In answer Bruce's hand landed on his shoulder. Such an astonishing thing it was, Bruce's sense of touch now. In those first awful days, back in the medical facility on the Watchtower, beneath the pain, beneath the trauma, beneath the anger, Clark had seen something worse: Bruce's terror. Carefully controlled, always masked. But there it was. And he had understood: Bruce was alone in the dark. Alone in that dark he had so hated his whole life that he had made himself master of it, that he had made himself its prince, and now it had turned on him, now it was devouring him. 

Clark couldn't make the dark go away, but he could at least make the aloneness go away, and so from the first hour in the hospital, he had touched Bruce as much as possible: a hand on the shoulder, a finger brushing his arm, just anything to make him feel connected to the world instead of shut off from it. Most amazingly, Bruce hadn't brushed him off or frowned: he had all but leaned into it. Nobody touched Bruce. Bruce had never invited touch. But now, touch was all the light he had, and Clark gave him plenty of it. 

And Bruce touched him back, now. Impossible to imagine Bruce before what had happened rubbing his shoulder casually this way. Clark told himself that wasn't why he stayed at the Manor, helping out while Bruce made this adjustment. He wasn't that pathetic. But sometimes, Bruce's hand would brush his arm, or his hand, or his shoulder—or God, once he was carrying Bruce up the stairs and Bruce had just curled a hand around the back of his neck like it was nothing, and all Clark could think was _hey I bet we never had that conversation about the location of Kryptonian erogenous zones_ , because Jesus Christ. Bruce's hand had been _right there_. His rapidly altered breathing had probably given him away, but Bruce hadn't moved his hand. By the time they were upstairs, Clark was all the way hard, and he had an ugly moment of being grateful Bruce couldn't see him. He had had to lock himself in the guest washroom and bring himself off, imagining what would have happened if Bruce's hand hadn't moved, if it had stayed there, rubbing, just slowly rubbing, driving him mad, and then more firmly, faster maybe, and Clark came over his hand into the bathroom sink, biting his lip against any noise. Touch was a two-edged sword. 

Bruce's hand was still on his shoulder. The thumb was rubbing him gently. Clark tipped his head in the direction of the hand. The hand hesitated, then the knuckle of the index finger rubbed lightly against the side of his face, near his ear. Clark could barely breathe. So much danger. He could turn into that hand. He could seize it in his, press his mouth to Bruce's palm. Surely—surely what Bruce was doing was unmistakable. Surely this was beyond friendly. Surely this was more than the need for touch. Surely—surely Bruce was. . . asleep. 

The hand fell back onto his shoulder, Bruce's breath evened out to stillness, and Clark stared at the last dying sputters of the fire, trying to ignore the thrum in his groin. Right before he drifted off, he remembered to put a hand on Bruce in case he woke first.

* * *

After his leg, the haze became extreme. The pain was constant, and at some point he was lowered from his hook. He lay on the cold concrete, grateful for it. The lower half of his body was immobile; any movement was an agony. Sometimes he thought Dick and Jason were there, talking in hushed tones over top of him. Other times, he was alone, had always been alone, had imagined their presence all along. That might have been when the fever started, or it might have come before. He knew the fever was death. It stalked him on hot feet.

"Let's talk about our childhoods," said the voice above him. "Well, I know all about yours. Parents died, lots of blood, very affecting, what a tragedy. Yours is boring. Let's talk about theirs."

"I have a better idea," said a voice that was unmistakably Dick's. It was hoarse, it sounded like it hurt him to talk, but it was Dick's. Bruce tried to roll towards it, but the stabs of pain shot upwards, and he stilled. "Why don't we talk about your future? You know, the one where I slice open your abdomen and watch your intestines spill out."

"Did you teach him to talk like that? No, I didn't think so." There was a hand on his neck lifting him up, and a cool drink of something being poured down his throat. It seemed like it was more than just water. He went to sleep soon after and woke to less pain, or at least it seemed like it. He could shift a bit, now. Painkillers. That would keep him in the game for a while more, for however more the man needed him alive. No telling how much later it was when he woke. A hand gripped his jaw, shaking him. He pushed it away.

* * *

"Hey, it's okay, it's me, I'm here."

Bruce opened his eyes to darkness and sat up in a panic. He was falling. There was nothing to grab onto. He reached out, flailed, but his arms met—solid arms that held his firmly. He fell back onto the sofa. He could feel the sweat slicking his chest.

"Did I—say anything?" He was out of breath, like he had been shouting again.

"No, it's okay, I woke you before you made any sound. I knew you were worried about Dick getting his rest. Bruce. You have to call Leslie about something to help with the sleep. First thing in the morning, you have to call her."

"I sleep fine." He tried to roll over, but of course on the sofa he couldn't get enough leverage. His leg hurt like fuck anyway. He sank back. "Get off the floor, go sleep in a real bed. I'm fine, go on."

Clark rose, stretched. The fire was probably dead now, and Bruce pulled the blanket more firmly around him. 

"Cold?"

"I'm fine." He lay as still as he could, feigning sleep. Clark didn't leave, of course. He just collapsed on the chair next to the sofa, and Bruce heard him pull the ottoman over for his feet. Bruce wasn't sure if he slept; Clark was a surprisingly quiet sleeper, he had discovered in the last few weeks. But he just couldn't go through another waking tonight.

* * *

"Let's start with your middle name."

Bruce was tied to a chair, and the knots were inexpert to say the least. It was the abundance of rope that was the problem. If he had had his gauntlets, he could have sliced through them instantly. Jason was in his line of sight, and Dick probably just behind him. The room reeked of damp. Something about it was wrong for a house, though something told him it wasn't a basement. He couldn't have said what. 

"I'll start with mine. It's Grahame with an 'e.' The 'e' is for that extra douche-y quality my parents were going for." He was twirling a long, thin iron rod. "John," he said, poking at Dick. Bruce couldn't see it from this angle, but he heard Dick's soft grunt, which worried him. It was possible Dick was unconscious. He tried to calculate how long it had been since their capture, but his disorientation was still too severe.

"Peter," he said, with a poke at Jason, who bucked and snarled. _Save your strength, you idiot_ , Bruce wanted to say. At least Jason had his clothes on. His own nakedness was alarming, because its purpose was not entirely clear. The room was cold, colder than the cave ever was. Bruce suppressed his shivers. "And. . . you. Your turn. Go." The chill tip of the iron rod pressed against his sternum.

"Come on, middle name? Rhymes with. . .?" He cackled. More of a breathy, hiccoughing sound that was too young for his face. "Okay, so let me ask this instead. How many people know your middle name? You do, that's one. _Alfred_ does, that's two." Bruce's head came up with a jerk at Alfred's name, and he knew he did not sufficiently mask his alarm. How did this man know the things he knew? For the moment his gravest concern was not being tied naked in some serial-killer made-for-TV movie set, but the breach of security. 

"Who else? Come on, tell true. You can't tell me that the greatest secret in the Justice League is Bruce Wayne's middle name."

"How about a deal?" Bruce kept his voice level, and as non-hostile as possible. His throat was a little drier than he had thought it would be, so maybe more time had elapsed than he had initially calculated. "I'll tell you, if you'll let them go."

"Hmm." He appeared to be considering this. His face was ringing some dim chime in Bruce's head. Wide cheekbones, deep-set eyes. An almost child-like smile, but at least forty, judging by the lines around the eyes. Maybe more. A thin mop of mouse-brown hair, flopping over one part of his forehead. A mischievous gleam appeared. "Which one?"

Bruce shook his head. "No. Both of them go, or I don't tell."

The rod poked him again. "Choose."

He flicked his eyes to Jason, who flicked them to Dick. He couldn't rotate enough to see Dick, but the twitch of Jason's eyebrow told him Dick needed medical attention. "Nightwing," he said. 

"Sorry, wrong answer, that one can't walk yet. He'll wake in a bit. Too bad, kid, looks like you're second choice again. That's gotta smart." The rod tapped his thigh. It inched higher, and shoved at his groin. Bruce's inhale was louder than he wanted it to be.

"I know someone else who knows your middle name."

Bruce said nothing to that. The rod was lolling lazily around his groin, poking desultorily at his testicles. "If I knew your middle name," the man said, "that would probably worry you, wouldn't it? I mean, that's something that no one knows, outside of you, your butler, and your best friend, right? Hey, want to know how I know that Superman knows? Come on, ask me."

Bruce just stared at him. The man laughed, the same curious whuffing sound as before. "Oh, you're never going to ask. Forget it. Why don't we have story time instead. Hey." And he reached behind Bruce, slammed the rod into Dick's chest, from the sound of it. There was a gasp of air, and a small groan. "Stop it," Bruce growled.

"He needs to hear the story. History is important. Once upon a time—listen up over there—once upon a time, there was a great and mighty warrior whose name was Robert Bruce, and he united all Scotland against the wicked tyrant King of England who wanted to destroy them. Stop me if you've heard this. No, seriously, don't you think it's a little strange that they don't teach the Bruce in grade school? At best he's some footnote in an AP Euro text. Pathetic." The man spun in his chair. It was something about the chair. There was something it was trying to tell him.

"So if I were writing for one of those grade school biography texts—you know, the ones with the illustrations where everybody looks like demented child molesters—here's what I would say. I would say, the Bruce won freedom for his country by fighting in a way no one ever had before, using guerrilla tactics, using the enemy's own strength and numbers against them. And finally, boys and girls, at Bannockburn, he dared a pitched battle, the fiercest ever fought, and he won. He became the liberator king, the one who stood against injustice and oppression. Most famous king of Scotland ever, blah blah blah. But you know the part of the story most people don't know? Most people don't know what happened to him after he died." The rod rose to Bruce's chest and pressed against his ribcage.

"They cut out his heart," he said. "They buried his body in Dunfermline Abbey, but his heart they put in a jeweled silver casket. The Douglas carried it with him on crusade, thinking to make it to the Holy Land with his friend's heart. It came to nothing, as such dreams always must. The Douglas was killed, the heart lost, and to this day Dunfermline Abbey holds the heartless, empty shell of King Robert's body."

The man leaned closer, his mouth inches from Bruce's ear. "Bruce _is_ your middle name." He sat back down, a soft smile on his lips.

* * *

Bruce's exhaustion after yet another sleepless night was hard to look at. 

Bruce sat in the study, in his favorite chair, and Dick was perched nearby, talking over his latest case with him—it was human trafficking, and it was hitting Dick hard. "I keep going over the same evidence, just over and over, and I don't know if I'm missing something or just not _seeing_ the pattern that's right in front of me. I think I've just had my head buried in this one too long."

"Could be. Run through what you have."

Clark drifted into the kitchen for more coffee, hearing not so much what Bruce said as the sleepless rasp of his voice. Despite his insistence on calling Leslie, Clark knew knocking him out was not the answer; the one or two times Bruce had tried that, taken more sleep meds, it had just made the waking worse. 

He watched the two of them through the doorway: Dick leaning forward earnestly, elbows on his knees, and Bruce stretched thoughtfully in his chair, his leg resting on the ottoman. He had the brace back on, which was a good goddamn thing after last night. The morning sun in the study was too bright by half, with the curtains pulled all the way back, and Dick was half-squinting as he talked on and on to Bruce. Bruce's face showed no awareness of the sun on it at all, no wince in its glare. Maybe he registered it as slightly increased warmth. Clark indulged himself for a moment, imagining the slow and painful death of the man who had done this to Bruce. It had not been slow enough, that much he knew. 

"I wish he would just come down to the cave, so I could talk to him there," Dick had said earlier this morning.

"You know he won't do that."

"Why? Because he thinks the cave is somehow mine now? That's such bullshit. I thought we were done with that when I told him I was not taking the house. Jesus. I still can't get over that. Tries to give me his fucking house. His _house_."

"He always meant for the house to go to you," Clark observed. "The cave is Batman's, and the house goes with the cave. But that's not why he doesn't go down there, and you know it. Don't make it harder."

Dick had shaken his head. "I wish to hell everyone would just stop pretending. There's only one Batman, and I'm not him." 

"If this is not what you want—"

"It is, God, of course it is! It's everything I've wanted since I was a kid. I mean, when I wasn't hating the idea with every fiber of my being. Just. . . I didn't want it to be like this."

"You'd prefer him to be dead first, before you became Batman?" Clark asked in irritation. "How exactly did you think this would happen, Dick? Whether he's forty-five or eighty-five, this was never going to be easy for him."

"I know. God, I know. I just—I keep thinking this is temporary, that somehow Leslie, someone, somebody will find a way to help him, to fix him." They had been in the breakfast room, and Dick had leaned against the door that led to the gardens, staring out it. "I remember the first time I ever saw him bleed. I ever tell you about that? I couldn't have been more than ten. He would go on patrol, and I would sneak down to the cave, waiting for him. Trying to see what he was up to, you know how I used to be."

"I have a dim memory," Clark said.

"So this one time, I sneak down there, and I'm on the stairs, and I see him standing at the sink, and from where I'm standing on the stairs I can see—I can see the water running in the sink, and it's not clear, it's pink. And then I see this gash on his arm, a really nasty one, and he's got black thread running through it, he's stitching it himself and tugging the thread with his teeth. And his face, I can tell it hurts him. I swear to God, that moment was a complete shock for me. I hadn't known anything could hurt him. He seemed invincible. That was the way I thought of him."

"That's the way everybody thought of him," Clark said. 

Dick snorted. "Yeah, well, I was ten. What's everybody else's excuse?"

"People are not always rational where Bruce is concerned. You know that."

"I know not a single goddamn one of them has been by to see him since he came home. Not a single goddamn member of the League. That's what I know."

"They came in the hospital. Lots of times. Bruce isn't what you'd call easy to talk to. And people. . . they don't always know what to say, the truth is."

Everyone had come, at least once. Several of them more than once. Barry almost every day, Hal at least that, and Diana, despite her initial hesitation, several times. After Shayera had visited, Clark had been shocked to find her mace resting on the covers beside Bruce.

"What the hell," he had said. Bruce had cocked an eyebrow. 

"There is a charming Thanagarian custom," he said. "Apparently those who have lost the use of their sight fell themselves with their own mace with a single blow to the forehead. She asked if I found this story meaningful. I told her yes, it meant I was glad I wasn't Thanagarian. I think she left this here in case I changed my mind."

"Good God." Clark had removed it gingerly. "I'm sorry. They just—"

"I know. But get that out of here, or Leslie will lose it. She already has me on suicide watch. Some slightly less bloodthirsty friends may be in order."

Bloodthirsty or not, they had come. Awkward or not, uncertain or not, they had all been there, especially in those first few days when the fever had raged in Bruce's body, and every hour his life had swung in the balance. Everyone had come, except the one Bruce was waiting for. He didn't say anything; didn't name him, didn't ask about him, didn't indicate by word or gesture that he thought of him. But Clark knew. Every step that came to the door, Bruce would turn his head quickly, and then as quickly away. But Jason never came. 

Clark stood at the doorway of the study now and caught Dick's eye. Bruce was so exhausted he was weaving, his eyes sliding shut as Dick was talking. Dick caught Clark's look, nodded, and slipped out with a hand on Bruce's shoulder. Clark set his coffee cup down loudly, announcing his presence.

"You didn't need to drive Dick away," Bruce said grumpily.

"You have no proof that I did."

"It's the psychic powers of the blind."

"If you're so psychic, how come you spread the raspberry jam on your eggs this morning?" 

"Unbeliever."

"Come on," Clark said. "You have to sleep. Just come lie on the sofa here. I'll wake you if things look like going south."

"I can't," said Bruce.

"You have to."

"You don't—you don't understand."

"Bruce. I do. I know what happens when you start to wake up. I know—"

"You _don't_ know," he said fiercely. "You don't. It isn't just the dark. It's—I'm falling. There's nothing under me, and I'm falling. I can't—there isn't—I can't explain, it's just—"

Clark knelt, tugged at his arm. "Come on, I have an idea." He arranged the sofa, banked a few pillows, pulled the afghan into place. "You've tried just about everything else, will you please try my idea?"

Bruce sighed and let himself be pulled awkwardly to the sofa. Clark stretched himself down on the cushions, then tugged Bruce gently down on top of him, mindful of the leg. He wrapped his arms around Bruce. Bruce was tense as a cat. "You can't fall," Clark said. "Not now. See?"

"Clark, this is ridiculous. You can't—"

"Shh. I'm napping."

"Oh for heaven's sake. I can't sleep on _top_ of someone. I'm blind, not four, a fact you frequently seem to—forget. . ." The last word came through a suppressed yawn. Clark started a slow rubbing motion on his back.

"No, see," he whispered. "I can see how this might not work with someone else. But you forget, I can fly. So you can't fall."

The tenseness left Bruce's body, one twitch at a time. The man was solid muscle, and stroking his back felt like running your hand down a jaguar's side, just as sleek and firm. "You can't fall," Clark whispered again, into his hair. "See?"


	3. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's memories continue to collide with his waking reality, and Bruce is forced to make an unthinkable choice.

The rape had been the least surprising event, and in fact he was only surprised the man had waited three days for it. He was relatively well cared-for: protein drinks three times a day, buckets to relieve himself in, a chain that allowed him some freedom of movement. The only problem with the protein drinks was what was in them, because he knew he was being drugged. And yet, when the other option was starvation, there was no real choice. 

No sign of Dick and Jason, after those first hours. No way of knowing how seriously Dick had been injured, and if they were together or apart. But no real surprises anywhere, least of all in the physical violation: that was how torturers worked, particularly one so personally invested in him. If he could work out why that was, he might be able to figure out a way of escape. And his torturer's insistence on an audience was unsurprising as well; in fact, it was the thing that filled him with the most hope, because Dick and Jason were clearly valuable to him as spectators, and thus not likely to be harmed. It was his humiliation that was the goal.

"I'm not actually a faggot," the man breathed into his neck. "So I'll have to use something on you." And there had been latex-gloved fingers pushing, probing at his hole. He relaxed and went away inside himself. Some object thicker and more unyielding than flesh was tearing its way inside him. There was a curious scuffing noise—the noise of someone trying to kick, maybe? Dick or Jason, one of them. If Bruce didn't give him a show, this would all be over sooner. He lay curled on his side on the cold floor and let the man do what he would.

And then the object inside him was twisted, thrust viciously upward, and Bruce could not control the grunt of pain it ripped from him. He kept his breathing shallow, but he could feel the pain rising. There was almost no noise in the room. 

"I've never done this before," the man said. "Hope I'm doing it right."

* * *

He hadn't meant to fall asleep too, but the truth was he hadn't been sleeping much in the last few weeks, either. Bruce wasn't heavy, or at least not to him—probably anyone else sleeping under Bruce Wayne would have found the experience like lying under a brick wall. But the weight stretched on top of him was pleasant and warm. Slowly, an inch at a time, he felt every muscle in Bruce's body relax, radiating from the center outward, and when he felt the hand curled against his side release, and slip onto the sofa, he knew that Bruce was finally, truly, at last asleep, in a place where no tormenting dreams were chasing him. He wanted to hold him tighter, but didn't want to wake him. The faint sandalwood of Bruce's aftershave clung to his hair, and he breathed it in deeply, settling into the soft cushions of the sofa.

He woke to Dick's hand on his arm. It was just a quiet hand, meant to rouse without startling, and Clark managed not to flinch or jerk or do anything that would wake Bruce. By common consent they didn't speak. Dick was crouched beside him. He reached to the little pad on the table next to the sofa. _Going out_ , he scribbled, _won't be back until after patrol tonight._

Clark glanced at his watch and was surprised to see it was almost three in the afternoon. He nodded. Dick scribbled some more, held it up for Clark to see. _Wouldn't mind a little back-up, if you can. Some eyes in the sky maybe?_

Clark frowned, and shook his head, just a small motion. He avoided Dick's gaze. He knew from the tap of the pen on the pad that Dick wanted to write more. But at last he just nodded, and rose, stalking out of the study on quiet feet. 

"What was that about?" said Bruce softly. For a moment Clark forgot to register his shock that Bruce had wakened without incident, but then he smiled. 

"Hey, you're supposed to keep sleeping. Didn't mean to wake you. How are you feeling?"

He could see the edge of Bruce's frown. "Was I blind and crippled when I fell asleep?"

"I believe the correct terms are disabled and visually impaired, but yes."

"Then I'm fine. Why did you shake your head?"

"Oh." Damn the man's uncanny senses. He had been bad enough sighted. "Dick just wanted to know if I was going out tonight."

"I'm assuming he meant with him, yes? Unless Dick is suddenly anxious to know if you're going to pick up some milk and Lucky Charms."

"Was that a dig at my eating habits? I'll have you know cereal is a very filling meal."

"Stop avoiding the question." Bruce shifted his head slightly, and resettled it. They were having this whole conversation, and Bruce was making no move to. . . well, move. Bruce's long body was stretched on his, Bruce's head was resting on his chest, Clark's arms were still wrapped around him.

"Then yes," Clark said. "He meant with him."

"Dick wouldn't ask unless he needed you."

"No, it wasn't—he's fine, really." It was a deflection that wouldn't have worked on an eight-year-old, but remarkably Bruce left it there. 

They were becoming excellent at not talking about obvious things.

* * *

"Let's play simile," the voice said. The man's face swam in and out of focus. Bruce swayed on his hook. His arms shook, and he didn't know why. Fever, that was it. The pain wasn't in his leg anymore; it had taken over his lower body. He couldn't locate it anymore, because it was everywhere. After his leg had been shattered, the man had released his chain and let him fall to the floor, right on the leg. That had been the moment of greatest agony; that had been what broke him. He had curled on the concrete and lost himself in sobs of pain, praying for the blackout that would not come.

The haze that enveloped him now was a comparative mercy.

"Rich as," the man prompted. "Come on, now you have to play. Oh, you're not paying attention, are you. I'll ask one of these boys."

 _No no I'm here, leave them alone_ , he tried to say. No sound emerged.

"Chocolate cake? No, that doesn't sound right." The man was at Jason now. He was running a hand up his shirt. Jason flinched away and scowled. Neither of them were broken. They were strong, whole. When they looked his direction, he imagined they were having whole conversations with their eyes. He imagined Jason forgave him. He imagined Jason was telling him he loved him. 

Sometimes he imagined the wall crumbling, and Clark stepping through it, lifting him off this hook, taking him far away. He hated it when Clark flew him somewhere. Hated it and loved it. Hated it for how much he loved it. Clark would be here soon.

"Rich as. . . Bruce Wayne." The man's laughter was breathy and weirdly childish. "And poor as. . . well, a church mouse would be the customary answer. But poor as an orphan boy adopted by Bruce Wayne would work just as well." He had both his hands on Jason now, running them up and down him, clutching at his buttocks, his chest. Dick writhed and growled. 

"Ever wonder," he whispered, "why he likes them so poor? It's because he likes them powerless. If they're powerless, there's no one to tell him no when he slips into their room at night. There's no one they can run to when he puts his big paw down their little Star Wars pajama bottoms and feels their tiny willies. How did it feel, having to swallow that thick meat, putting your little lips around that thing? It's a fat one, isn't it?"

He made his first miscalculation: he stepped too close to Dick. Dick had finally worked up enough motion, where he hung, to curl his legs, and he launched both those powerful limbs into the lower half of their tormentor's body. He knocked him off his feet, knocked the wind out of him with an _oof_. He scrambled for the remote and slammed his hand on Dick's collar. Dick writhed and howled, behind his gag. The man's face was a twisted snarl of hate.

"I'm trying to help you confront your issues," he spat. "You ungrateful little shit." He struggled up, released the remote. Dick hung limp. 

"Dumb as dirt," the man said. He turned back to Bruce. "Blind as? Oh come on, this is an easy one. It's my best joke, you have to get this one." He was walking over to a little metal table. He had a syringe of something. He shot a squirt of clear liquid out its tip, and advanced on Bruce. "Come on, it's not hard," he wheedled. "You've got this one worked out, surely. Oh wait." He paused. "I should tell you to take a good look around you. Here." And he stepped over, pulled the gag down from Dick's slack mouth, grabbed his jaw and turned his face to Bruce. "You might want to take a good look."

"If you hurt him," Bruce managed, the faintest of whispers.

"Wow, you really are not getting the point here, are you." He released Dick's jaw, and then the man was behind him, somewhere he couldn't see. He felt a hand running up his spine. There was a sharp cool pinprick at the base of his neck. "Blind as," the voice purred in his ear. There were fingers in his hair. 

"Nice thick hair," he was saying tenderly. "Lovely and dark and thick. You've got that receding hairline, though. Bet you've always had that. It works for you. Widow's peak, they used to call that. But you won't have a widow, will you, because you and the ladies, not so much, eh? Hey, do these boys know how much you like to fuck other boys in the ass? Did you practice on their tiny holes, when they were younger?" The fingers grabbed his hair, jerked his neck backwards. The lips were at his ear. 

"Blind as a bat, boyfucker." And the needle shot home.

* * *

And so without a word, they fell into the only sleeping arrangement that worked for Bruce: stretched on top of Clark, with Clark's arms around him. It was the only way, with Clark's arms pinning him, that he woke to anything other than wild panic. Clark still felt the occasional jerk in his body, but he knew then to tighten his grip, to ride the re-entry with him. Slowly, Bruce's sleep normalized, and it had been a full two weeks without a single incident before Clark realized that the worst of it was behind them now. As long as Bruce was firmly anchored to him for sleep, everything was fine. They still stayed mainly on the sofa, but sometimes now they migrated to the bed. _This is the longterm plan, be Bruce's body pillow for the rest of his life?_ he asked himself, in reflective moments, but always there was another voice that answered, _yes, absolutely_. 

Clark sat at the breakfast table the morning after that first time they had tried it, perusing the paper and wondering how late Dick had been out on patrol. Dick wandered into the room and poured himself a cup of coffee. Mostly these days Bruce took breakfast upstairs, preferring to venture downstairs later in the morning. Dick sat at the table beside him, sipping his coffee without a word. Clark put the paper down.

"Dick," he said.

"You think I'm going to hassle you about getting out there again. I'm not going to hassle you. You'll go or you won't, and you'll go when you're ready."

"That's not—" 

"It's just that I think you're ready, and maybe you don't realize it. Look, what you did wasn't—"

"Please," Clark said sharply. "I'm trying to talk about yesterday."

"Oh." Dick squinted at him over the coffee. "What about yesterday?"

"When you came into the study." Dick looked blank. "When Bruce was sleeping." Dick frowned. Clark tried again. "When Bruce was sleeping on me."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"I just think you may have thought something that is. . . not true. I didn't want to leave you with the impression that. . . something was occurring that was not, is all."

"Oh." Dick set down the coffee and aimed the squint at him. Not much of a morning person, was Dick. It was like his face didn't even fully unfold before nine o'clock and three cups of coffee. "Looked like a nap to me. 'Course, it's been a while."

"Dick. You know what I mean." 

"Yeah, I do. And I guess I would say. . . I guess I would say, I'm sorry to hear that."

Clark stared down at his paper in silence, not immediately finding anything to say to that, or anything he trusted himself to say. "Our relationship is not—has never been—like that," he said, after a bit. 

"Yeah, I get it. You sleep half-naked and in each other's arms, but no homo. Message received." 

"That isn't—"

"Sorry." Dick held up his hand. "I mean it, I'm sorry. I've just had a rough night, and that came out. . . not like I meant it to. I'm just frustrated about a number of things right now, from this case to the League to. . . your deal about patrol. Truth is, your relationship with Bruce has always been inscrutable, and I didn't mean to try to, you know. Scrute it."

Clark was back to silence. "Have you talked to Bruce about why you're not out there?" Dick asked.

He shook his head. "Hell no. He has enough to worry about, he doesn't need to add me on top of everything else." 

"I see. That's pretty noble of you. Of course, it's also the exact same thing you would do, if you just didn't want to tell him because you were too afraid to talk about it."

"I'm not afraid to talk about it," Clark said. He noted with some alarm that his mild irritation was fast becoming not so mild, and that irritation was possibly not the word any longer. He breathed through the spike of anger, keeping his eyes on his hands. 

"Well, maybe you should talk to him. Always works for me. It's true, he's given me some shitty-ass advice over the years, but somehow I can always figure things out, after I talk to him. I mean, I say shitty-ass, but if the answer to your problem happens to be repress your feelings, do your job, and shut up being such a pussy about it, then in that case it's excellent advice. Anything else, not so much."

"There's a lot in life that can be solved by that particular advice."

"How did I know you would say that. I'm just saying, before last month, you would have talked to him about it. If you're going to say you can't talk to him about things now—"

"You really don't have anywhere else you need to be? Nowhere at all?"

Dick flashed him a grin. He rose and gave Clark's shoulder the same quick slide of farewell he gave Bruce's, a gesture that made Clark feel older than his years. "All right, old man, I get the message. No more unsolicited advice. I'll be down in the cave if you guys need me. Tim's coming over to help lay out some new schematics for the computer, so you'll know where to find me."

"How is Tim?"

"Busy. Pissed. Pissed and busy. He's holding down the fort for me in Bludhaven, and I think he's getting a little tired of doing somebody else's job, but I guess he can just get in line on that one."

"Dick—"

"It was a joke, relax. Once Damian is finished with his lessons he can come help out downstairs, so you don't have to worry about him. You got any plans for today?"

"Thought I might get Bruce to try that Braille pad connection for his tablet."

"Good luck with that."

"Yep, should be some good times. Catch you later."

Dick was down the stairs to the cave before Clark heard the quiet breathing in the doorway. He downed the last of his coffee. "For the love of God," he said to Bruce, who was leaning against the swinging door to the butler's pantry. "You have a cane. And a metal brace. Explain to me how you can still get the drop on me."

"I've been lurking behind doors in this house my whole life. It's the only way I ever learned anything interesting, when I was young. What did Dick mean, about the League frustrating him, other than that he thinks they should be showing up here with casseroles on a daily basis?"

"There was. . . a vote, last week."

"For a new leader."

Clark clenched his jaw. "Yes."

Bruce's brows rushed together. "Last _week?_ Goddamn them. They should have taken that vote four weeks ago, and I thought they had. What the hell were they waiting for? Idiots. And you're a bigger idiot, for not telling me sooner."

"I didn't actually know about it, until yesterday."

That brought Bruce up short, he could see. Bruce wandered over for coffee, and Clark resisted hopping up and getting it for him. The leg appeared to be giving him less trouble today, and Bruce moved so easily in his own house that sometimes, in small areas like this, it was easy to forget he couldn't see a damn thing. He kept a finger just inside the rim of his coffee cup, to make sure he didn't pour too far. Clark watched the careful precision of his movements. Bruce eased into a chair at the table. 

"Alfred's at the store," Clark offered.

"Isn't that interesting and relevant to our conversation. Why didn't you know about the League's vote until yesterday?"

He examined his hands. "Because I am not in the League."

Bruce digested this in silence. "You took yourself out."

"Yes. But it was confirmed by a vote, afterward."

He saw Bruce's eyes narrow at that. "You voluntarily removed yourself from the League, and _then_ they felt it necessary to hold a vote kicking you out?"

"Ah, yes. That. . . would be what happened, yes."

Bruce was looking at him like he could see him, straight at him. Clark found himself avoiding that penetrating non-gaze. "You haven't asked what I did," he said.

"I should think that much is obvious. You would only remove yourself from the League if you had lost control. For you, the consequences of losing control would be spectacular. How many did you kill?"

"Can we not," Clark said, his throat suddenly tight. "Can we. . . I just—"

Bruce's hand reached the short distance across the table and seized his, unerringly. Clark tightened his hand on Bruce's, turning his face away. "This is probably where I say to shut up being such a pussy about it," Bruce observed. Clark started laughing and could not for the life of him stop. The smile spread across Bruce's face, erasing the harsh lines the last month had scored there. It was the best thing Clark had ever seen, and some of the tight band that had choked off his air for five weeks began to ease, just the smallest fraction.

* * *

"Choose." The voice was insistent, pulling him down from where he was floating, up above the pain. "Come on, I've given you plenty of painkillers with that last drink. I even let you sleep a bit. You ought to be able to do this. Come _on_." The hand that slapped his face was not gentle. Interestingly, it was the first time there had been any slapping. Not a good sign, that; a mark of contempt.

He opened his eyes to blackness.

It was his third waking into darkness. His body wanted to flail, to strike out, to peel away the dark, but it would not obey him. He noted his panic reactions as if from a distance. He stopped the scrabbling of his fingers at the concrete when he heard the soft laugh. "Here's what is going to happen," the voice said. 

"We're almost finished here. I've accomplished everything I need to, except of course the final end, which is nothing spectacular, just a little denouement. I'll even tell you how it's going to happen, so it's not a surprise, and you're not anxious about it. I'm going to up the dose in your drink, and you'll just go to sleep: that's all. Nothing painful. Your respiration will just slowly fail, and that will be that. Doesn't that sound nice?"

It did. It really did. If the drink had been in front of him he would have chugged it down. But the part of him that wanted life struggled and fought. He could not drink. He could drink only tiny sips. That way he would die of starvation, or dehydration. It would be slow and painful. For why, so he could have a few more days of miserable life? _Yes_ , said the thing inside him, _yes_. What an astonishing thing, after all these years, to discover this: how desperately, profoundly, powerfully he wanted to live. 

"But before we get there," and the voice was right at his ear, the hand back on his hair. "Before that, you have to choose."

His head was clearing now. He frowned. What did the man mean? Choose his method of death? But that didn't make sense.

"Choose," said the voice, its hand caressing his face. "One can stay with you, but one must go. You will choose one of these boys."

His chest collapsed. There was nothing in his experience of this man that said he was lying. "One will live," he crooned, "and one will die. And you will decide. If you refuse to decide, I kill them both. I will do it painfully, while you listen. Maybe you will even be able to tell which one I am killing, maybe you will not. But I will do that. Do you believe that I will do that?"

Bruce nodded. 

"Are you ready to choose?"

"Now?" He croaked the word. 

"Yes. I brought them in. I am going to take their gags off. I will let them plead their case to you. But let me explain something. The one you choose for life will be drugged, and taken up to the surface, and deposited many, many miles away from this place. By the time he wakes and finds help, you and his companion will be long dead. Do you understand this? There is no hope of any help coming. You accept that now, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. So we can talk like men. The one you choose to die, I will leave with you. There isn't long left now, and I don't begrudge you that comfort. So you might want to let that make your decision for you. Which one will be more comfort to you, in the time you have left? I'm loosening their gags now. Are you ready to choose?"

There was only silence. There was a drip-drip of water somewhere. _To the surface_ , the voice had said. Sewers. Fuck it to hell. Of course. The Gotham sewer system had been completely replaced last year, the old components and routing stations bypassed entirely. They must be in some abandoned offshoot, down in the belly of nowhere. The chair, the old-fashioned slat-backed office chair the man had been sitting in before. From some long-unused routing station's desk. That was what his brain had been trying to tell him. Well. Not that it mattered, at this point. 

He mustered the part of him that was no longer broken, the part that remembered who he was. "I. . . will not. . . choose," he panted.

"I was afraid of that. I will kill them both, you realize that?"

"Will. . . not. . . choose." They were the only words his mouth knew. 

"Bruce," said Dick's voice. He sounded strong and whole. "You have to. Get Jason out of here. It will be fine."

"Shut up, Grayson, you fucker. For once in your goddamn life will you stop being so fucking noble. Bruce, you motherfucking cunt, listen to me. Grayson's injured, he's been hiding it, you need to get him out of here and then we'll think of something—"

"Bruce, no! Don't listen to him, he's—"

The laughter that bounced off the concrete walls was loud and hearty, the sort of laughter that made it hard to breathe, genuine belly laughter. He sounded like he was rolling on the floor, maybe. "Oh my God oh my God oh my God," he gasped. "This is so much better than I could have planned it. Oh God, I love you guys so much. You have been the best. Seriously, you have made me so happy. This whole thing has been wonderful, amazing, but this is the absolute best."

"Bruce," growled Jason, but then it sounded like something cut him off. A blow of some sort. There was a scuffling sound, a groan. 

"And now the games are over," said the voice. It was low, and all laughter had been erased from it. "Jason, tell him what I'm doing."

"Motherfucker has a knife at Dick's throat," Jason said, and there was a hitch in his voice. "There's blood. Bruce."

Air, air, there was not enough air. "Choose!" bellowed the demented voice. "Choose, so help me, or I push this into his trachea right _fucking now!_ Choose who lives, say the name, say it, _say it_ , I know you want to say the name, say the name you want to say you motherfucking coward, you blind broken sack of shit, _choose who lives_ , the name, the name, give me the _name_ —"

" _JASON!_ " yelled Bruce with the last ounce of his strength. "Jason," he said again, his voice cracking. He hunched over on himself. "Jason lives," he said, one last time. There was nothing left to feel. "God forgive me," he said dully. 

"You motherfucking fucker, how _could_ you," spat Jason, and there was more scuffling, more thrashing, and a moan of pain ripped from what was left of Dick's throat.


	4. Climbing to Light

It was inevitable: Clark had been waiting for his body's betrayal. 

Had he really thought he could lie under Bruce, night after night, cradling the man in his arms, and get away with it? What voice had persuaded him this was a good idea in the first place? Probably not one that came from his brain, but someplace quite a bit south of there. So it was nothing but predictable when he woke about an hour before dawn, on the narrow sofa in Bruce's bedroom, Bruce sleeping heavily in his arms, hard as a damn plank. 

No one could have seen _that_ one coming. 

Option One: continue to lie here and hope that his erection subsided. On the surface of it, a not unreasonable hope, and had he not been lying underneath Bruce, it might even have worked. But Bruce's body was pressed right against his, pushing into his with every inhale; Bruce's arms were curled loosely around him, Bruce's head was nudging at his neck, his nose and arms and skin were full of Bruce, and it was not exactly an ideal situation for willing a stiff one away.

Which left Option Two: ease himself out from under Bruce, go to the bathroom and take care of the situation. A far more reasonable, far more practical solution. Its obvious disadvantage was that of course, he would wake Bruce. Bruce was a genius, but it would not take a genius to understand at once what was happening, or to know why the bathroom door was staying closed for so long. And then he would have to walk back to the sofa and lie down on it again, with Bruce knowing. 

There had to be an Option Three. He was just not seeing it. If he could somehow contrive to fling Bruce off him before Bruce was even completely awake, that might work. There would have to be an emergency of some sort. A fire alarm. An air raid siren. A tornado. Any of those would be useful, in this situation. 

It was always the option you didn't see that would bite you in the ass. Because of course what happened was the apocalyptic horror of Option Four: Bruce was already awake. 

Bruce's right hand moved up, and began absently rubbing at his upper arm. Fucking God, thought Clark. There was no way he did not know. There was just no way. He closed his eyes in shame.

"So tell me what you did," Bruce said, and Clark's eyes flew open. 

"Wh—what," he said, around a suddenly dry throat. 

Bruce moved his head. "The reason you left the League."

"You—you know what I did. Bruce, I'm sorry, I need to—can you get up for a minute?" He didn't wait for an answer, but as gently as he could, lifted Bruce off him. He made it to the bathroom and leaned against the closed door. His stupid erection was still stupidly bobbing in front of him, because he was stupid. And Bruce wanted to have a discussion about why he had left the League. For Christ's sake.

He brought himself off quickly and efficiently, with a minimum of mess and noise. He came back out to find Bruce sitting up on the sofa, his robe pulled around his shoulders. He was just staring straight ahead, his jaw tight. Clark eased himself back onto the sofa, but Bruce showed no inclination to lie back down. Clark watched him stare into space, into the blackness of his head. He watched him blink. 

"Is it because I'm. . . the way I am," Bruce said, in what was clearly intended to be a question, but his voice was flat. 

"Is. . . what?"

The muscle in the side of Bruce's jaw jumped and clenched. He turned his face away. "Never mind," he said. 

Clark put a hand on his arm. "Don't say that. I just didn't understand your question. Is what because of the way you are?"

"I haven't exactly thanked you," Bruce said. He turned his head back to Clark. "I don't know what would have happened to me in the last few weeks if you hadn't been here. I know I've relied on you, maybe too much. I know you didn't do it to be thanked, but I know what you've done for me and been for me, and I need to thank you for it."

Clark closed his hand on Bruce's arm more tightly. Bruce was stiff, not responding. "Okay," he said. "But I know with everything in me that if our positions had been reversed, you would have done and been the same for me. And I would have let you."

"Yes," Bruce acknowledged. 

Clark's hand moved down to clasp Bruce's, but it didn't clasp him back. "Let's lie back down," he said. "Come on, we can get a bit more sleep." He tugged at Bruce, who resisted at first, but then let himself be pulled back on top of Clark. Clark tried to re-settle him, but he was unyielding, stiff somehow. Not pliant like before. Clark tightened his arms around him.

"What's wrong," he whispered.

Bruce shook his head. "Just me, being an idiot," he whispered back. 

"Of all the things you could never be. The smartest man I've ever known."

"Not that smart, I think," Bruce said, after a minute or so had passed. He clearly wasn't going back to sleep.

"I killed a man," Clark whispered, into the warm fire-shadowed room. Bruce's hand squeezed his arm. 

"Who?"

"His name was Arthur Zane Grier. He was thirty-four years old. He had been institutionalized five times in the last fourteen years because of his schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He had been studying to be a chemical engineer at Cornell when he developed symptoms. His sister told me, afterward."

"What did he do?"

"He killed. . . a man I knew. At the corner of my building, there's this little grocery store, just a bodega really. But they always have fresh things, some good produce. Kaipo was a colonel in the Laotian air force, but he left all that to come here. They had a little girl. Her birthday would have been next month. She was going to be eight. Her name was Iwalani." 

Bruce's hand didn't let go of his arm. He did that small circular motion with his thumb. "And Arthur Zane Grier walked into their store."

"Yes. He didn't even ask for money. He just opened fire. I was just walking in to pick up some bok choy. He was standing there. I didn't move fast enough, I don't know what happened. He just opened fire. Kaipo put Iwalani behind him, but it didn't do any good. It was a high-capacity magazine, he could have taken out a lot more than just the two of them."

"What did you do?"

Clark's voice was so soft he wondered if Bruce could even hear it. "I don't really remember. Didn't remember. Not at the time. I took off his head, and then his arms. I ripped him to pieces. I dismembered him with my bare hands."

Bruce was quiet. "Maile—that's Kaipo's wife, she always sets aside some persimmons for me, when they get some in. She was in the back when it happened. She came running out screaming. She saw the bullets go through her husband and her little girl. She slipped in all the blood, trying to get to them. She was shouting things in Laotian, I don't even know. When the police got there, she told them Grier had rushed me, come at me. It's a lie. I took his weapon first thing, I remember hurling it through the glass storefront, remember that shattering. I just don't remember what happened after."

They lay in silence. Bruce's thumb had not stopped moving. "Green Lantern was in the area, he got there even before the police. He. . . got me out of there. The police, they believed what Maile told them."

There was more silence than he could bear. "Don't tell me it's all right," he said. "Don't tell me it's not like the Justice Lords. I know what it's like."

"You made a mistake," murmured Bruce.

"I am the single most deadly force on the face of this planet. Everyone forgets that, because I eat cereal and drive a Toyota and live this normal life. They forget. I could destroy everything I touch, everyone I care about, with the flick of a finger. They forget, but I never can."

"I don't forget it either. And by the way, your life is not all that normal."

"No," Clark said. "You never forgot it. You always knew. That's why there's that kryptonite in your basement."

"You put the kryptonite in the cave, if you recall. What was the date, when Kaipo and Iwalani were shot?"

Clark hesitated. "The eighteenth of March."

"Three days after."

Three days of sitting by Bruce's hospital bed, praying to every God he no longer thought he believed in, for Bruce's life. Three days of Dr. Thompkins pulling him aside for updates. The surgery decisions. _What are the risks of this surgery_ , Dick had asked, and Leslie had told him. _Too risky_ , he had said emphatically. _Absolutely not_. But Clark had said, _Do it_. Dick's jaw had been angry. _Not your call_ , he had said. And Clark had pulled out the papers he had never wanted to pull out: medical power of attorney for Robert Bruce Wayne, held by Clark Joseph Kent, current and notarized. Dick's silent face, as he turned on his heel. 

"I have been very. . . angry," Clark said, into the dark. Bruce held him fast. "So. . . fucking angry."

"Because of me."

"I should have protected you. I should have been there. I couldn't even _find_ you when you were missing. And then you came back, and you were—"

"Destroyed," Bruce supplied.

"No. _No_." Clark seized Bruce's head in both his hands, tilted it to his. "You are not destroyed. There is no part of you that is destroyed. You are perfect. You are alive, you are here, you are—"

"Being crushed."

"Sorry." Clark released his grip on Bruce's head. "Sorry. God. I don't even have enough control right now to—well. You see the issue."

They lay so long in silence that this time Clark was certain Bruce had drifted off. Clark was half-asleep himself when Bruce spoke again, soft enough to be ignored if Clark were sleeping. "You went to see Grier's sister."

"Hm?"

"You mentioned his sister. You went to see her, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I did."

"And?"

"She was his younger sister. She had two boys. Two little nephews. The older one looked like him. They were so goddamn nice. I sat on their sofa and she brought me picture albums of Arthur when he was a little boy, star pupil, valedictorian. The whole family had been so proud of him. And then the last decade or so, when he was drifting, breaking out of every psychiatric institution she got him in, developing a fascination with guns, she worried about him so much. Months would go by before she heard from him. She used to pray every night that wherever he was, he was safe. And it's funny. Funny to think about. Her prayers were answered, until the day that I walked into that store. He probably didn't even realize what he had done. She said to me, please don't think bad of him, even though he did what he did. I dismembered her brother with my bare hands, but she didn't want me to think bad of him. She hugged me when I left. Actually hugged me."

And there was more he could have said, and did not: of attending Arthur Grier's funeral, which had been a sad affair with just him and the sister and the little boys and two other people, friends of hers from her church. Any of Arthur's friends, anyone who might have known and cared about him when he was younger, he had long ago alienated. They had scattered his ashes at the ocean, because she said he had always loved going to the beach, when they were children, and those were her last happy memories of him. She had said a few words over the ashes, crying mainly, but talking about what he had been like when he was a little boy, so happy, so loving. And then she had looked at him, and he had realized she was expecting him to say something, too. 

Bruce was the one who wrapped him this time. Clark's limbs were trembling. Bruce pressed his weight against them to still the shaking. "Evil doesn't always come from a place of evil," Bruce said. "You know that, better than anyone. Alfred used to say that people give pain because they are in pain." 

"Didn't Alfred also used to tell you that sprinkling lemon juice on your underwear would prevent venereal disease?"

"And I'm the picture of health to this day."

Bruce rolled to the side and pushed at him to shift him. It was a difficult maneuver for two large bodies on the narrow couch, but Bruce got them positioned side-by-side, with his arm under Clark, and Clark's head, for once, on his chest. "Will this be okay," Clark murmured as he drifted off, worried Bruce would not have enough support underneath him if he went through a difficult waking. But he was just so tired; telling that story had wrung him, and he had not thought anyone could be this tired. He could barely keep his eyes open. Bruce was stroking his back, he knew that much, but probably he imagined the other things: the lips that brushed his hair, the fingers that ghosted his temple.

* * *

"I'm proud of you," said the voice, curled up next to him, and Bruce turned his face to the concrete and wept. "Don't cry. I'm proud, I really am. You made the choice that most people can't. You should be proud."

 _My son, my son is dead, and I have killed him_. Maybe the drink would come soon. Maybe his release would come at last. 

There was a hand patting him, comforting him in some obscene way. Bruce didn't have the strength to shove it off him, and no longer cared. His body was somewhere else, nothing that happened to it mattered anymore. 

"I know what it is to love someone like that," the voice went on, in some hideous parody of empathy. "In fact, that's why we're here. I wanted us to get to this point, I wanted you to understand what it is to lose someone and have it be your fault. You keep looking at my face—well," he said, and there was a faint laugh. "You did, back when you could see. I could see that you almost recognized it, but you couldn't really, because you'd never seen it before. Are you ready for story time?"

Bruce's fingers dug into the concrete. _Dick, Dick, Dick_. 

The first time he had hugged Dick, the first time Dick had run into his arms to be embraced, the way he had felt that in the center of his body: his whole life, marvelously explained. Of course, that was his purpose. All along, he had thought his life was about him, when he had just been meant to be in the right place at the right time in order to be there for Dick. His son, his beloved, his only. There was a story like that in the Bible, he remembered, back when his parents had made him go to church, lifetimes ago. God had made this man sacrifice his son to prove his love. _Who would do a thing like that?_ he had asked the Sunday school teacher. Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest. What a sick fuck God was.

"Once upon a time, there were two boys. Are you listening? I bet you are. They were very close in age, just a year apart. They were together all the time. Their parents loved them very much. They had a childhood like any other American childhood; nothing terrible or strange happened to them. They went on vacations, they had friends at school, they had Christmases with presents." The voice had a singsong quality, and it was gentle, like he was soothing a child. 

"The younger brother did very, very well in school. But when he got older—when he was seventeen or eighteen—something odd began to happen to the older boy. He would say things that his brother thought were not quite right. He would do strange things, for no reason that anyone could see. He became obsessed with card games. Once he went a whole week and only spoke using a deck of playing cards. The younger boy figured out the language, and tried to talk it with him. And he told his parents, he said, my brother is sick, I think he needs some help. But they didn't listen.

"And his brother got worse. He left home, he didn't go to college, he just started to wander. He would send his brother newspaper clippings of terrible crimes, and eventually his brother figured out that they were crimes he had committed. He knew his brother was very, very ill. The younger boy went to college and medical school, because he wanted to find his brother and fix him, to make him better. He knew it could be done. He knew there were medications, there were treatments, there were things that could be done. A few times, he found him, but he could never persuade him to come back with him. But in those times, when they were together, he knew his brother was in there, underneath all the layers of madness and pain and suffering. Still the same boy he had loved. Still the same."

The voice was further away now, like he had gotten up to sit somewhere, like he was standing and looking down at Bruce. "You don't even know my brother's name, do you? To you, he was just some sick villain, some cartoon of evil that you made it your life's work to demolish. You never saw, you never cared. The only name you knew for him wasn't even his." A foot, heavy and booted, came to rest on his back. "Say the name. Say the name you knew. Say it so I can carve it into your face before you die." The boot pressed on one of his broken ribs, and he gasped. Such a prosaic pain to feel. "Say. It."

"Joker," Bruce whispered. "Your brother is the Joker."

"My brother's name is George. I'm Henry, by the way. Nice to make your acquaintance. George knew who you were, you know. He's always known. He didn't care anything about playing with Bruce Wayne, though. That's what he told me. He said it would have been against the rules of the game. But he told me. He told me everything." There was something pressing into him, something that felt like the tip of that metal rod. "Do you want to die now?"

"Yes," Bruce croaked. And then, the word that he knew would get him what he wanted, the final sign of his brokenness: "Please."

The hand patted him. "All right then. I don't have any objection. I guess we're done here."

"You better fucking believe it," said a voice that had to have come from Bruce's head. There was a wet strangling sound, low grunts, the noise of feet. "Jason," hissed Dick's voice. Impossible, it was impossible. "We don't have time for that."

There was a noise like a large blade scraping on concrete, and a muffled scream. The blade scraped again, and again, and again, like something was being hacked, butchered. "Jesus Christ, Jason," said Dick's impossible, beautiful voice. "Hey. Hey, stop, it's okay, stop."

"Mother _fucker_ —"

"Jason, _leave him_ , we have to get Bruce out of here. I can't carry him alone, come on, help me."

There were strong arms lifting him, supporting him. He cried out because every movement was pain. Shameful, weak cry. His hand fumbled to feel the hair, the face, the throat. Like the other old man in the Bible, the blind one with the beloved son who had been cheated of his inheritance. Was that whole book nothing but a story of lost sons and grieving fathers? _The voice is the voice of Jacob, Absalom my son my son_. Dick, it was Dick, it could only be him, it had to be him. "Not. . . dead," was all he could say. 

"Hell of a lot more alive than you, if we don't get you out of here and to a doctor. Just hang on, I know this hurts like hell, I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing for rescuing him," growled Jason's voice. "Fuck, Bruce, what do you weigh?"

"Others," he tried. They would understand.

"Unfortunately, yeah," said Dick. "Something like this, there was no way he could pull it off alone. I don't think he hired muscle. I think someone hired him, someone who thought they could use him to break Batman. If I'm right, his bosses are right behind us. We have to move. Come on, let's pick up the pace." 

Bruce was being dragged, more or less, in between them. He tried to use his left leg for leverage, so they wouldn't have to support his whole weight, but since he couldn't see where they were going, he didn't have much success.

"Down that way," Dick said, low and urgent. Bruce tried to keep track of the distance. There were shouts behind them. Every movement was agony. His body rebelled against it. His body couldn't take it. 

"Hold—hold on," he managed, and pushed at one of the arms holding him. 

"What the—ow, stop," said Jason's voice, but then Bruce bent double and vomited the meager contents of his stomach. Someone supported him, and a shirt wiped his face. After that, only blackness.

* * *

It was full daylight when Clark pried his eyelids open, and Alfred had already brought up a tea tray that was resting on the table in front of the sofa. He was alone on the sofa, and he could hear the shower running. He could also see the brace lying discarded on the chair opposite. Bruce was in the goddamn shower without his brace on. Damn the man.

"Bruce," he said at the door to the bathroom, tapping loudly. "Bruce."

"What?" He could hear the water splash and patter against the glass shower wall. That was one thing he was going to miss the hell out of, when he went back to Metropolis and his crappy apartment: water pressure that could peel the skin off you, and an endless supply of hot water. 

"You're not wearing your brace."

"I thought I was the world's greatest detective," Bruce called.

Clark cracked the door. "Bruce. Come on, you're going to get hurt. The shower seat is right over there, I can see it from here, let me just bring it to you."

"For God's sake, I am capable of balancing on one leg and letting water run over me. Maybe you'd like to come in here and brush my teeth for me? You're not my goddamn mother, Kent, so stop— _fuck_ ," and Clark's heart stopped when he heard the tremendous bang and thud. He pushed open the door, and Bruce was on the floor of the shower, his head tipped back against the wall, his leg bent under him at an angle that must be agony. Clark slammed the water off.

"Okay, let's get you—"

"Fuck it hurts fuck it hurts fuck it hurts," Bruce was panting through clenched teeth. Clark picked him up easily, slowly straightening the leg from under him. 

"Sorry, sorry," he whispered as Bruce groaned in a frustrated sound that was half a growl. There was a bench in the bathroom, upholstered in the softest plush, and he gently laid him on it. He scanned the leg with x-ray vision, but the truth was, with the metal rod in place, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be seeing. Leslie would have to look. "Better?"

"Sure," said Bruce through gritted teeth. "Any chance I could have some clothes?"

"Sorry." He grabbed a towel from the warmed stack and placed it over him. Then he reached for his robe and draped it on his shoulders. Bruce was already shivering.

"It's fine. I just—I spent a lot of time naked, down in those damn sewers, and it's not something I care for right now." Clark paused, beside the bench, because this was the first time Bruce had ever said that, had made any reference to what had happened to him. The worst of it he had had to learn from Leslie.

 _You're his medical proxy_ , she had said. _So I'm going to give you all this information. Stop me if I need to go more slowly. It's a lot to take in, and some of it's not easy to hear._

"Okay, you're going to have to tell me what you think. Should we call Leslie right now?"

Bruce shook his head, swallowed. "No. I just wrenched it. Being an idiot. I seem to be on a roll." He winced and rubbed at it. "We'll chalk this one up under 'exploring my new limits' and move on." He reached into the pocket of his bathrobe and shook out several Vicodin, downing them quickly.

Clark smiled. "Sounds like a plan. Maybe baths for a while?"

"No, thank you. I suspect I know the plan for getting me in and out of the tub, and I'll pass. I'm just about at my yearly limit for emasculation."

Clark rested a hand on his leg. The hair had mostly regrown, since the surgeries, except along the bright shiny stripes of scar. They were still red, the skin slick to the touch. He ran a thumb up and down one absently.

"Please don't." Clark lifted his hand immediately. Not once had Bruce asked him to stop touching. "I was thinking," he said. He winced again at a stab of pain. "Before I decided to fall on my ass in the shower, I was thinking about your living situation."

Clark rocked back on his heels. It wasn't that he hadn't seen it coming, but please, dear God no. He controlled his voice. "Please don't let's do this," he said, and to his distress there was less control in there than he would have liked. "Let's not. You need me here, and you're probably going to need me here for a while. What is the plan for when something like this happens again? You think Alfred can lift you, or hell, even Dick? Dick maybe, but he's going to be in and out, you know you can't rely on his schedule in case you—and it makes sense for it to be me, I need it to be me, all right? Can you understand that this might be something I need, is there nothing in you that can—"

"Clark." Bruce's hand was heavy on his shoulder, and it was evidence of the pain still throbbing in his body that he missed, slightly, and landed a bit left. "I was just going to say, why don't you move to one of the larger bedrooms in the south wing, instead of being cramped in the old valet's room down the hall? That's a horrible room, and you need more space than that. Besides, you're in here with me most nights, so it's not like you need to worry about sleeping close in case I need you. Have Alfred show you the rooms today, you can pick one out. Whichever you like."

"Oh." He blinked. "That. . . would be great." His leave lasted only another week. What was the point of moving his things if Bruce didn't mean. . . "It will be good to have more room," he said. "My own space."

"You go back to work next week, I know."

"I do. I can—it's possible I could see about moving to part-time, if Perry would—"

"You know you can't do that. But I was just going to say, when you start back at work, there's no reason you have to move out of the Manor. If you wanted to stay, that is. Metropolis is a short commute. But it's up to you, whichever you'd prefer."

"I would prefer to be here."

Bruce winced, and rubbed at his leg some more. "Then as long as you're still in the valet's room, why don't you make yourself useful and act like one. I think that's the end of my attempts at hygiene for the day. Can you bring me some clothes?"

"Sure. But brace first."

"Come on, Mom, don't be that way."

"Well," Clark called from the bedroom, where he was gathering the brace. "I would say, I'm better looking than any mom, but in your case, I've seen the pictures, and I know that's not true. Your mom was quite the looker. Have you ever thought about that, objectively? There's this one photograph in the study, of her and your dad at some party, and she's got this off-the-shoulder gown on, and I swear I can't look at that picture without thinking, hel _lo_ there." 

"You're making me very uncomfortable."

"That's just because you're lacking objectivity." Clark bent to fasten the brace. He stopped to study Bruce's face, to see if the pain was easing at all. Bruce twitched at it.

"Hate this fucking thing, it's like wearing a cage." 

Clark's hands paused in their work. His voice when he spoke was quieter. "Did I make the wrong decision?" Bruce's hand covered his.

"No. You made the right one. I'd rather have the leg, even with all of the shit that comes with it. Even with the pain, even with. . . all of this." He waved his hand at the brace on his leg. "You made the right call. I don't imagine it was easy."

 _How dare you_. Dick's angry face in his, his voice a low quiver of rage. _You think a piece of paper gives you this right? That's my father lying in there, and you're playing games with his fucking life._

_I'm not playing games. I'm trying to do what Bruce would want._

_Bullshit. You want him to look like Batman. I just want him alive. It's too much of a risk to leave that leg on, and you goddamn know it. If Dr. Thompkins removes it, the infection stops, and his body has a fighting chance of surviving this. And with the advances in prosthetics, he'll have more mobility and less pain than if you left the fucking leg on him. Who the fuck cares about a stupid leg?_

_Bruce does_ , he had said firmly. _He's had enough taken away from him, I won't let him wake up and discover he's lost this too. I'm not changing my mind on this one. Dick. I'm trying to do what Bruce would want._

_What he would want, or what's best for him? Because this just in, those aren't always the same thing._

_In this instance—_

_I could take you to court. I could fight this. You know I would win._

_You wouldn't. Bruce made this document airtight. Dick. He wanted me to be the one making these decisions for a reason. Please try to understand._

Bruce's hand tugged him out of his reverie. "Clothes?" 

"My apologies, Master Bruce," he said, straightening. "The cashmere today, or the tweed? Perhaps the sweater knitted from the toe hairs of baby bunny rabbits?"

"Suck it, Kent."

"Your language has gone severely downhill. Okay, let's see what we've got here." The enormous walk-in closet—really, the proper word was probably dressing room—opened off the bathroom, and Clark went to the shelf where Bruce's clothes were currently stored. The array of beautiful jackets, shirts, and suits was largely unused right now; his working wardrobe was this one shelf Alfred had arranged. For one thing, after the past five weeks there were only a few things he could wear; most of his pants, especially, hung on him now, and Bruce had always been lean. But the main reason for the shelf was to make sure Bruce could select clothing without worrying what it looked like. Everything on the shelf co-ordinated, and more or less matched. Not that it had been hard to pick out what would work, since the man wore black turtlenecks in all seasons like some kind of uniform. 

Clark took a minute to run his finger along the rack of suits. Bruce would wear them again. He just needed to bulk up a bit more, get some of his weight back on him. He needed to be eating more, that was certain. And he needed to be eating more fattening things, instead of all the greens and protein he normally consumed. He would talk to Alfred about it today, see if Bruce could be tempted with some cream pies. Maybe a French silk pie—that would be just the thing. No, devil's food cake; that was Bruce's favorite. 

"Hey Bruce," he said, coming back into the bathroom, "did you ever—" 

He stopped, because Bruce was back asleep, his head leaning against the tiled wall, the bathrobe tugged around him. Clark debated leaving him, but the position was probably no good for his leg, brace or no. He set the clothes down and gently lifted him. It was more difficult, with the brace on, but he managed not to rouse him too much. Bruce opened his eyes, but then they drifted shut again. His head tipped over onto Clark's shoulder. Odds were he had taken more than two of those Vicodin. Clark got him to the bed, unfastened the brace, and Bruce curled into the pillows like he was forty years younger. The towel and bathrobe that had been loosely draped weren't doing much of a job covering him, and Clark pulled the sheet and blankets firmly around him. Bruce would hate waking up naked. It might even cause the same sort of waking panic he had hoped they were done with. So after a moment's hesitation he slid in beside him, anchoring him with a heavy arm across his middle. 

Bruce rolled his direction and turned into him. A very, very naked and painfully beautiful Bruce was pressed against him. Clark was wearing only his pajama bottoms. Oh, oh God. His chest was against Bruce's, Bruce's hips snugged into his. Sweet Christ, this was torture. Shallow breaths, he told himself, shallow breaths. Bruce was drugged out of his mind anyway. He didn't know what he was doing.

Bruce's head was resting right below his jaw. He shifted, and murmured into Clark's neck. "I need it to be you too," he said.


	5. Feeling Their Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick and Jason rescue Bruce, and so does Clark.

He roused to consciousness as they were putting him down, propping his back against a cold wet wall. "Christ, he's burning alive," he heard Dick's voice say. He was breathing hard. "We have to get out of here."

"Sure thing, Dickie Bird, I'll just plug in my handy GPS. There are miles of these tunnels, and some assholes with AKs who know them pretty well right behind us. You had a plan here?"

A pause. "I do. One of us will have to go ahead and scout a path for us. We can't drag Bruce along as we figure this out; that's going to exhaust all of us. I should be the one to go."

Jason's laugh was an ugly one. "Because you don't trust me to come back, do you? Every time I think you could not be more of a cocksucking cunt."

"Because," Dick hissed, "you asshole, I'm the better climber, and I'm more agile than you in the dark."

"Oh yeah? When we get out of here, let's test that theory, just you and me."

"You're on. For now, let's just get out of here alive. There's—"

Bruce heard voices, faint echoes, and Dick and Jason went still. They must be hiding in some alcove, some forgotten bend of tunnel. There was an echoing drip that told him the space was high-ceilinged, though. The voices were yelling, and then there was a bark of command, and they went quiet. "Get out of here," Jason whispered. "Go, dammit."

He didn't hear Dick depart, but then he wouldn't. No one heard Dick move. He was pretty sure the voices were further on, though. 

"Jason," he said, after a few minutes had passed. 

"Yeah."

He tried a feeble gesture of beckoning, then realized it might be too dark for Jason to see it. "Come—come over here."

"Yeah." Jason's voice was closer, right next to him. "Just—try to hold on a bit. Dick will be back soon."

"I know. We don't have much time." He had a small window of clarity through the pain and fever and dark, pressed here against this wall. "Jason. You know the score. The two of you don't make it out of here, if you're dragging me with you."

"Just shut up," Jason said. "Shut up and wait for Dick, he'll be back soon, he—"

"Jason." He reached out in the dark and found his arm. "You know it as well as I do. You don't make it, with me along."

"What, so you want us to leave you here? Yeah, I can see Dick letting that happen."

Bruce tightened his grip. "Not leave me. Not that. Jason. You know what to do. You know the pressure points. You know how to do it." And he reached for Jason's other hand, more or less arriving at it. He brought Jason's arms to his neck. "Come on, Jason. You know you have to. Get it over with, before Dick gets back. He'll believe what you tell him, it can just be that I stopped breathing. Jason. Please."

"Fucking stop it," Jason snarled, snatching his arms back. 

"Jason, listen to me," and he put everything he had into it. It was his one chance, their one chance. "You would be doing me a favor. You think I want to live like this? Blind and maimed, that's how you want me for the rest of my life? You may not like me very much, but even you can't want me to live like this. Jason. Give me the kind of death you would want for yourself. At least give me that much. Let it be you. I need it to be you. Jason. Please."

Jason's arms eased to his neck. He felt the trembling in those arms. He had never wanted to hold his son so much as now, when he couldn't. He had to help him. "You can do this," he whispered. "Just you and me. Dick can't do it. No one else can. You were always the strong one, the one who could do the hard thing."

"Shut up, shut up," Jason said, and he heard the crack in his voice, knew his face would be wet if he reached for it. "Okay," panted Jason. "Okay." But still his hands did not tighten.

"You want to live," said Bruce. "I know you do. This is the only way. You know it. I know it. Get out of this hellhole and live."

"Wait, just wait. I need—just wait. You want me to do this, fine, I get it. I'll do it. But I have a price."

Predictable. It wouldn't be Jason if there wasn't a price. Standing at the threshold of death, and he was haggling with the devil. God, he loved this kid so much. But they were running out of time. Already he could feel his moment of clarity slipping away, already things were spinning again, the fever was reclaiming him. "Name it," he said.

"Tell me why." Jason's lips were at his ear. "Tell me why you said my name, and not the name you wanted to say. Tell me _why_ , motherfucker. You tell me why you chose me to live."

"You don't know?"

"I have my guesses. But I want to hear it from you. And then I'll kill you, I promise."

"A man. . ." He struggled to organize his thoughts, but they swooped and swirled away from him. His room was a mess, Alfred would be angry. Clark was laughing at something he had said, but then he turned away to look at someone else. Clark didn't want him. He reached out a hand but Clark was fading away. No, that was Jason. Jason. That was right. He swallowed, tried again. "A man should die. . . when he's done the things he's supposed to do. Become. . . the man he should be. Dick. . . he is that. You need. . . more time. Deserve. . . more time."

"Wait a minute. You're telling me you wanted me to live. . . because I'm a _bad person?_ Holy Christ. You are such a shiny cock-knob, even I can't believe it." 

"And." Bruce swallowed. He reached into the black, and found the thing he was looking for. He let his hand rest on the side of Jason's face, while it still had the strength to do it. It fell back, he couldn't hold it there. "I lost you once. I couldn't do . . . not again. Not because of me, again." He tugged at Jason's arm. "Your promise."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." Jason's arms were back around his neck, and the hands were firm now, firm and warm. How could he be this cold, with all this fever? A cool hand stroked his forehead. Oh dear, his fever's a hundred and one, we can't go out tonight. Poor little thing. Martha, you coddle the boy, he's fine. I'm not missing the symphony just because you decide to play nursemaid. He has a nanny, for God's sake. I'll stay with him, Mrs. Wayne. I'll take good care of him. Thank you, Alfred. Look after my baby boy. Look after the baby.

Jason's fingers tightened. "Wait," Bruce croaked.

"Yeah?" Jason sounded impatient.

"Message." He licked his lips, but there wasn't enough saliva in his mouth to make a difference. "For. . . Clark."

"Of course. The one person on the planet more annoying than Grayson, and you send me to talk to him. What's the message?"

Bruce tried to sit up a bit more. He needed to concentrate. "It's not English," he said. "Can you memorize it?"

"Depends. How long is it?"

"Repeat it after me. Enzakh ishtab."

"Enzakh ishtab," sighed Jason.

"Iz kin."

"Iz kin."

"Lyagren."

"Nyagren."

"No." Bruce grabbed at his hand. "Lyagren. Say it."

"Lyagren. I get it, I'm not a moron. What the hell is this, Klingon?"

"Enzakh ishtab iz kin lyagren. Say the whole thing."

"Enzakh ishtab iz kin lyagren. Satisfied?"

Bruce nodded, and slumped back. "Do it now," he said. "You promised."

"Okay." Jason's fingers tightened slowly, and Bruce took one last sweet breath of air. Jason's mouth was at his ear, Jason's forehead leaning against his own. 

"You forgot one thing," Jason whispered. "You forgot I'm a liar." 

Bruce felt the pinch of fingers at the base of his neck that meant loss of consciousness, and the black came very quick.

* * *

Bruce dozed off the Vicodin hangover, and was abruptly awake. Clark tightened his arms, but Bruce flung them off. He sat up and quickly pulled his bathrobe, tugging it tight around him. "I'm going for a swim," he announced. 

"Ah, okay," Clark said, swinging his legs over. "Well, we haven't really talked about the logistics of that. I know Leslie said it would be good for the leg, but—"

"You know what?" Bruce was upright now, tying his robe. "Why don't we do this. Why don't you figure out what are the one or maybe two things you will let me decide for myself on any given day, and then I can choose from those."

"Bruce—I didn't mean. . ."

"Whatever. Just—" He was reaching for his cane, but it was not, of course, against his nightstand. His hand struck out, searching, but he knocked over the water glass he kept on that side for meds. He swore quietly and fiercely. The glass had shattered, and there were bits and shards around Bruce's bare feet. Clark bent on silent knees to pick them up. He gathered them in his hand as best he could, and brought Bruce his cane. 

"You were right, about the swimming," he said softly. "I'm sorry that I'm hovering. I'm not sure how to stop."

"No." Bruce shook his head. "For God's sake, look at me. I can't even take a shower on my own, can't so much as get out of bed without creating—" he waved his hand. "I just need—I'm sorry, I think I just need to be alone for a bit. Everything I need is in the poolhouse, and Alfred can help me if I need it. I'll be fine."

"I know," Clark said. His palm was still full of glass. He watched Bruce go. Bruce never made a mistake, as he walked, and whether that was because he could have walked these halls blind from the time he was three years old, or because his training made him so sensitive to his environment that he hardly needed sight, Clark couldn't have said. 

He hadn't moved that easily back on the Watchtower. 

"He can finish his rehab back on earth, at home," Leslie had said, but that hadn't solved the issue of how to get him there. "Bruce, let us just use the wheelchair," Clark had pleaded. Bruce had shaken his head. 

"No. I can make it to the damn zeta tubes on my own." 

Trouble was, that was a crowded hallway, from the hospital wing to the nearest zeta platform. Clark made sure it was clear; he had conferred with Hal, and together they had threatened every League member with instant disbarment if anyone dared show his or her face along that corridor. It had taken Bruce the better part of half an hour, his movements excruciating and slow, even with Clark's arm to guide and support him. Near the platform, Bruce had stopped altogether, and Clark had put a quick hand on his shoulder, to make sure he was all right. 

"I'm fine," he had said, just resting there with his hand on the wall, before he stepped into the zeta tube, and Clark realized he had been saying good-bye. Bruce would not return to the Watchtower again. This amazing, wonderful thing that Bruce's money had built, that Bruce's imagination and passion had called into life—Clark knew Bruce would never stand on it again. It was like seeing the Watchtower's heart walk out of it. And all this time they had thought the place ran on the world's most sophisticated computer system.

"Recognize," said the smooth computerized voice, as he stood ready for transport. "Batman, Zero-Two."

"Authorize identification change, Zero-Two," Bruce had said, standing on that platform for the first and last time without cowl, without suit. "Bruce Wayne."

Hearing that had maybe been the hardest moment.

He didn't intrude on Bruce's swim, or even ask him how it went. He went out for a bit, and took the bridge over to Metropolis—he had some errands to run there (five weeks of not picking up his dry cleaning had left a weight of guilt he could no longer swallow around) and then he stopped in at the Planet just to remind Perry he was alive, and would be returning next week. Perry was his usual irascible self, and shot Clark a suspicious look when he walked on his floor.

"He's really glad to see you, I promise," said Lois, smoking her pen out one side of her mouth. "He just doesn't want to get hurt again."

"Come on, baby, you know there's only you." Clark grinned at their boss. "I'll be back on Monday, I swear. Got anything I should look at?"

"Yeah," said Perry, spitting out another wad of Nicorette. "Your e-mail, for a change. You even look at your inbox once the past five weeks?"

"I've been kind of busy." Perry's snort at that was eloquent, but Lois's eyes were sharper. 

"You don't look that good," she said, in an undertone. "Are you sick?"

He ran a hand through his hair. He had thought he looked fine. It was true, he could probably use a haircut, and he wasn't as careful with shaving as he would be if he were going to be at the office. And maybe he had lost a little weight, but that was easily remedied. "I'm fine," he said. "Just been under a little bit of stress."

"How's your aunt?"

He looked at her blankly, before he remembered. Right, poor dying Aunt Miriam. He tried desperately to remember if it was renal failure or congestive heart disease that was killing her, and wondered if both was overkill, or playing it safe. "She's. . . doing all right. We've. . . you know, got her comfortable now. I think I'll probably still stay over in Gotham during the week, you know, commute back and forth."

"Ugh, that's a nasty commute. Your car is held together with chewing gum, it won't last a week logging those kinds of miles."

"Well, I think maybe I can borrow Aunt Miriam's."

"Can't be more of an old lady ride than you've already got. Seriously, you have to do this?"

"Just for a bit, until she's better."

Lois looked puzzled. "I thought she was dying?"

"Well, I mean better in the sense of. . . better able to look after herself." No, that didn't help, did it. "What I mean is, she'll be better once my cousin arrives. Then, you know, he will obviously be around to, ah, shoulder some of the burden."

Lois was still looking at him narrowly. "It's taken her son six weeks to make it to his dying mother's bedside?"

"He's a photographer, with National Geographic. He travels to some pretty remote locations. None of the family even knew how to get in touch with him until last week. It's going to take him at least another ten days to hike out of the rain forest and make it to a place with any kind of airport. Funny, huh. You don't think of the world as still being like that. Places away from communication, that sort of thing. It's a real window on how people used to live their lives. Imagine going weeks at a time without hearing from any of your loved ones, not knowing if they were alive or dead. . ." His babble was painful, even to his ears. Lois just raised her eyebrows and went back to her laptop. Great, now she thought he was not only lying about his aunt and dying of some mysterious illness himself, but clearly drunk. 

"I'm just gonna. . . go check my box in the mailroom," he said.

It was close to six before he made it back to the Manor, what with fighting the traffic over the intercity bridge. He was going to have to explore alternate routes back and forth to Gotham, or maybe be a little less rigid about the flying, because this was ridiculous. He put-putted his car (and Lois was a thousand times right on that one, he would have to do something about his P.O.S. if he was going to be doing this regularly) into the back bay of the garage, and tried not to glance too enviously at the array of unused sports cars perched in the other bays like high-strung thoroughbreds looking down their noses at the stable nag. 

The house was quiet. Dick was either not back from Bludhaven yet, or already out on patrol, and there was no sign of Alfred. Fortunately no doors were ever locked, around here; not much point to a deadbolt when your front gates were equipped with body heat sensors and retinal scanners. "Hello?" he called, peering into some of the downstairs rooms. His shoes echoed in the wide polished halls. "Bruce?"

He found him in the study, and knew something was off before he was through the door. Bruce was just standing there in the middle of the room. "Bruce, what's wrong? Where's Alfred?"

"He, ah. . ." Bruce licked his lips. What was the matter with him? And then Clark noticed the rhythmic shaking of the hand clutching his cane, of all his limbs. "He had to—there wasn't. . ."

"Hey." Clark put his hand on Bruce's arm. "Hey. Why don't you come sit down?"

"No, it's fine, I'm fine, there was just—I wasn't sure if—I needed to see what—"

 _Holy Christ, he's in a full-blown panic attack_ , Clark realized. Heartrate through the roof, tremors all over his body, pupils so blown his eyes were almost black—and wasn't that just the kick in the nuts, that Bruce's beautiful eyes still responded to light, still sent the same signals to the optic nerves, but the nerves themselves were dead, unable to read the signals continually sent them, like some satellite traveling far beyond the reaches of the galaxy, still faithfully sending its transmissions back to earth. "Hey," Clark whispered. "Hey, I'm here." He wove his arms around Bruce, tight enough to squeeze breath, put his hand on the back of his head to fold him in. If he could just still the shaking.

"I thought—ah, I wasn't sure you were—coming back," Bruce said, and Clark straightened at that, looked him in the face.

"Wasn't sure I was coming back? Why the hell would you think something like that?"

"Because I was—such an asshole. I wouldn't—blame you if—you left. I tried to—find my phone, say I was sorry—don't know where the damn thing—couldn't _find_ anything—I just—"

"Shh, shh, it's okay, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry it took me so long, I should have called." Quickly he ran through the medicine cabinet inventory in his head, but he didn't think there was any Ativan in there. He needed to bring Bruce out of this or he was going to pass out.

"Sorry, sorry," Bruce was saying. His teeth were practically chattering. "God, I'm sorry." Clark just held him tighter. 

"It's okay, you don't have anything to apologize for, shh, it's okay, all right?" Clark tried to maneuver them to the sofa by the window. It was really more of a love seat, but it would have to do—all he needed was to position them for the one thing he knew to do for Bruce, which was to lie down together where his arms could be around him, his voice in his ear soothing him. It seemed like the shaking might be slowing down, but he couldn't tell. He tugged at Bruce a bit more. "Come on," he said, "let's just lie down for a bit."

Bruce jerked his hand out of Clark's. "No," he said angrily. "I don't need to lie down, why do you always want me to lie down? 'Take a nap' is not the answer to everything."

"Well. It was always what my Grandpa Lloyd recommended. He used to say, there's no problem that couldn't be solved by taking a nice long nap."

Bruce's eyebrow arched to the ceiling. "Sincerely?"

"Yes, he sincerely said that. I don't know whether he was being sincere or not, or just trying to get me to stop annoying the crap out of him for five minutes, but there you go, that's the extent of my avuncular wisdom."

Bruce put his hand over his face and made a strange noise. At first Clark thought his   
panic attack might have advanced to the stage of hysterical weeping; then he realized Bruce was laughing. The sight made him break into a grin. This, this he could always do; this was them. He had always been able to lance the boil of Bruce's cynicism and anger with a well-placed word; always been able to jolt him into quiet laughter when no one else could. Clark's chest felt like someone had released about a thousand helium balloons inside it. "Tell you what," he said. "I'm tired of going out every night, clubbing and what have you. We should try staying in tonight."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know. Movie night? Something tells me there's quite a bit of popular culture you've missed out on in the last few years."

"Your movie night plan has a flaw, which I am reluctant to point out. They don't make Braille movie screens."

"True," Clark conceded, "but I can think of any number of movies in the past few years where seeing the screen would in fact be a hindrance to enjoyment. Imagine, if you will, the quiet pleasures of absorbing nothing but the dialogue of Transformers 3." A quick scan of Bruce revealed a normalizing heart rate and retracting pupils. The shaking had stopped altogether; he was leaning against his desk in much the same position Clark had seen him in a million times before. 

"What do you mean, I've missed popular culture. I've raised four boys, I think I know my popular culture better than you."

"Really. Name the last movie you saw, in a movie theater."

"That's ridiculous. I saw one just recently, the one about the woman."

"Well. . . tragically that does actually narrow it down quite a bit. What woman?"

Bruce made a gesture with his hands. "You know. With the. . . hoop skirts and whatnot. She fell into the water. Somewhere in Australia."

"I. . . have no idea what you are talking about."

"Don't be obtuse, of course you do. It was very beautiful, I liked it a lot. There was a man with a tattooed penis, and she was deaf. No, mute, I forget. He cut off her finger."

Clark squinted at him. "Bruce. Are you by any chance talking about The Piano?"

"Yes, that's the one. See? Lovely film."

"That came out in 1993."

"Yes." Bruce was frowning, with his head tilted like he had heard something in another room. "But they don't make. . . Braille screens. But if you could. . ." His frown furrowed his brow more deeply. "If there was a way to. . ." He was holding up his hands, like he was reaching for something in front of him. He turned to Clark. "Write something down for me. Grab something and write. Do you know formulas? If I recite one, can you write it down? And then read it back to me?"

"Sure." Clark grabbed a piece of paper and pen off the desk, and Bruce was already talking, moving in a slow circle as he spoke, his hands describing smaller circles. Clark tried to keep up, but the barrage of numbers and shorthand was a lot to take in.

"You see what I mean," Bruce said abruptly, stopping.

"I don't—I'm not sure that I quite—"

"We receive visual information from our optic nerves, yes? That's the only human pathway of reception. And all our research, all our technology, has been focused on repairing that pathway. But what if. . . what if you didn't repair the road, but went around it? What if you built a new one?"

Clark frowned. "Meaning?"

Bruce held up his hands, fingers spread. "Imagine if your digital sensory net could be configured to impart visual information."

"But that doesn't—"

"No, that's not how the human body functions, of course it's not. But now imagine something akin to virtual reality gloves, just as a crude analogy, that you put on your hands, and they re-configure — temporarily, obviously — the neural net in your fingertips. Imagine these hot spots in the glove, each of them with a perceptory radius of, say, 1.5 centimeters. Imagine placing them on a screen, which then imparts visual information to these, let's call them neural translators, in your fingertips. The information travels to the brain, and the brain sees an image. Who knows how perfect or accurate this image would be—we don't have any way of knowing what that mode of seeing would be like. But if it could even approximate visual information, if it could even come close. . . just to see outlines, to see the shadow of a loved one on that screen. . . it would be life-changing, it would be revolutionary."

"But. . . Bruce, human technology is light years from—"

"Exactly," he said vehemently. "Human tech is. But alien tech is much closer to being able to transfer sensory information, and you and I have seen that sort of tech in weaponry again and again. All these years we've spent trying to repulse alien technology, trying to keep it from exploding the earth into the sun, but we never really stopped and thought about how we could manipulate smaller, scaled-down parts of it to create. . . small fragments of a better life here. If we could negotiate for access to some of the foundational technologies, then we would be taking a huge leap forward. You and I could both make a list right now of planets whose research into neural transference outstrips our own planet's by hundreds, maybe thousands of years. We could learn from them, we could establish mutually advantageous information trades. It could be done. You know it could."

"Yes," Clark said, staggered by the Bruce he saw before him, by his sudden ferocious energy. "It could."

"Write," Bruce commanded, and began spouting more formulas, walking in the circle again, asking Clark to read it back to him, just as often changing it, shaking his head, theorizing in numbers as he limped his widening circle around the room. 

"Yes, yes, yes," Clark said, scribbling right behind him, beginning to see what he was driving at, seeing the world these numbers were constructing, seeing the world that Bruce saw. "This—this is genius."

"This is desperation. But the thought that it might be possible—to see just the outline of a face, just its shadow. . ." And Bruce reached out, like he was seeing it in front of him now, and his fingers brushed Clark's actual face. They didn't draw back; he was still half in reverie, and his fingers mapped Clark's face, stroking, questing, caressing. Surely he could feel how fast Clark's breath was, on his fingers. 

The maddening fingers were at his hairline now, almost as though Bruce were imagining the technology he had talked about, as though he were seeing Clark through his fingertips. "I've touched every part of you but your face," Bruce said. "People don't really touch faces. Such an extraordinarily intimate thing."

"It is," Clark husked. "It's—" He turned his face into the palm that brushed his jaw, moved it to his mouth, kissed it. The fingers curled into his jaw. "God—Bruce, I can't—" he gasped.

"Home at last!" called Alfred from the study door. Clark dropped Bruce's hand like it was on fire, and Bruce quickly shifted several feet away. "And carrying the fruit of my labors with me. Quite literally." He hoisted a small sack and smiled at them. "I left a simple soup on while I was gone, and I thought we would have a light supper, but finish with these. Cape gooseberries, the first of the season at my market of choice. They've laid them in just for me. Master Bruce, I've yet to tempt you with my lemon verbena tart with gooseberries, but tonight shall be the night! And a healthy dollop of sweet cream to accompany it, of course. How does that sound?"

"Delightful, Alfred, thank you."

"All right, let's not delay. I don't want that soup to go too long on the heat, I'd ought to serve it right up. Are you boys coming?"

"Of course," said Bruce with a smile. And his fingers brushed Clark's wrist in passing: three fingers circling his wrist, a firm press. Whatever language of touch they were now speaking, Clark had long since lost the lexicon.


	6. Plain as Day

Alfred's tart was probably delicious, as was the soup, but Clark had no ability to taste any of it. His own senses were focused on Bruce, sitting across from him at the breakfast room table. Bruce never ate in the dining room now, with its large un-navigable spaces, and most of the time Clark was glad of that. But tonight, a little more privacy would have been appreciated. Alfred was chattering away about his experiences at the market, not requiring comment from Bruce, and Damian was unusually talkative, pressing for more tart while grilling Bruce about some move he wanted to learn that Dick was refusing to teach him, and even while Clark did his best to make appreciative noises in all the right places, he could not stop feeling Bruce's hand on his face. 

And the thing that made it hardest to concentrate, of course, was his awareness of Bruce's arousal. Bruce was aroused, he knew it for certain. He could hear it in his heartbeat—not wild and panicked, like before, but slightly quickened. Bruce's breath was a bit shallower, his pupils fractionally widened. Whatever had happened in the study had affected him too. After dinner—God, if this was what Bruce wanted, if he had really meant it—he would crush his mouth into Bruce's, curl his fingers in those gorgeous hips, he would. . . 

"And then the trick is to contract the little finger just _so_ ," Damian said, attempting to demonstrate on his wadded up napkin, holding it up in front of his father's face like he could see it. That was one of the more frustrating things, was how Damian kept confusing blind with nearsighted. But Bruce reached out and felt his son's grip.

"Like this," he corrected, adjusting the fourth finger down a millimeter. Damian frowned.

"That feels odd."

"It's supposed to. Your hand is probably too small for it yet."

"That's what Grayson said." Damian said it not like it confirmed his father's words, but like it raised suspicion of a conspiracy.

"Dick knows what he's talking about."

"Did you teach him that grip, when he was my age?"

"He absolutely did not," Dick said from the doorway. He leaned over the table and swiped a bite of tart. "Mm, man," he said. "Alfred, that is spectacular."

"Thank you, Master Richard. At least _someone_ is appreciating my cooking tonight," he said, with a pointed glance at Bruce and Clark. 

Clark gave eating another go, and tried to pay attention to whatever Dick was saying, as he and Damian and Alfred chattered about God only knew what. Clark's hearing was mainly focused on the whoosh-whoosh-thunk of Bruce's heartbeat. He got up to get more water, and did what he normally did every time he was near Bruce: just put a hand on his shoulder, as an alert to his presence, a random tendril of anchoring. Except tonight he could _feel_ the way Bruce leaned into it, could _hear_ the small acceleration of heartbeat at the touch, and Christ, he did, Bruce wanted him too. He was dizzy with the knowledge, and his cock filled even further. He sat quickly, before his hardness became any more visible. If Alfred weren't here, if Dick and Damian weren't. . .

"So we should talk about why you're not accepting the League's vote," Bruce said mildly, pushing away his plate of tart. Clark noted he had just picked at it, moved it around a bit without really eating much. He also noted he waited until Damian had been driven upstairs by Alfred to finish his homework before beginning this conversation. 

"I am accepting it," Dick said. "I'm just not agreeing with it."

"That's petulant and meaningless."

Dick's jaw tightened. "There's going to be another vote on Thursday. Why don't we talk about this then?"

"The outcome will be the same, and you know it. The League has chosen their new leader. The sooner you accept that, the better."

Dick pushed back his chair. "Dick," said Bruce. "They chose you for a reason. You're trusted by all, known by all. Your leadership skills have been proven, time and again. You've trained for—"

"They chose Batman. They chose me because I wear the suit."

"That's untrue," Bruce said. "They voted for Nightwing. And whichever identity you assume, whichever you find most useful, your place is at the head of that table. You know it, and so does everyone in that room."

" _Your_ place, you mean. You want me to do this, because then it's like you never left. It's like it's still yours, somehow. But look at me: I'm back living in your house, wearing your suit, driving your car, doing your job, and now you want me to sit in your seat. There's a limit, Bruce. There's a limit to how much of my own life I'm willing to give up in order to live yours for you."

"That's enough," Clark said softly, because he had caught Bruce's wild spike of heart rate, and it sure as hell wasn't arousal now. 

"You know what," said Dick, his voice taut, "for once, I would appreciate having a conversation with Bruce that did not involve you."

"Master Richard." Alfred's tone was reproving. 

"For Christ's sake. " Dick tossed his napkin on the table. "Every time I turn around—did you ever think, Bruce, that I might want just five minutes with you, without Clark around? Did you ever think that maybe you and I have some things we ought to talk about? But no, that's not the way you work, is it? God forbid we talk about things, in this house."

Bruce's eyes were down, aimed somewhere on the table. Clark balled his fist. "Stop," he said, his voice a low growl, and Dick's eyes on him were fierce.

"Back the fuck off," he said, "and don't you ever give me an order again."

"Dick." Bruce's voice, when he spoke, was quiet. "I offered you this house. If you recall, you turned that down. I respected that. But that means this house—for now—belongs to me. And you will not speak like that to Clark in my house, ever. Are we clear?"

Dick stood, his hands on his hips, his head down. He was clearly struggling for control. "Crystal," he said at last. "Well." He put his chair under the table, his movements carefully controlled. "Fun as this trip back to my warped adolescence has been, with your permission, I think I will excuse myself. I'm betting you know where to find me." And he took the back stairs to the cave. They could hear the whoosh of the hidden door in the corner of the kitchen, and then its snick of closure. The silence in the room was heavy.

"There's plenty of tart," Alfred said.

* * *

Bruce wasn't the only one who hadn't been down to the cave. 

Clark wasn't sure he could stand it, for one thing, seeing someone other than Bruce in that chair. It jolted him, because for a half-second his brain said it was Bruce: a muscular, suited form, cowl pushed back from thick dark hair, alone in the blue glow of the monitors.

Clark stood on the stairs, and Dick swiveled from the chair. He looked born to it. The shadows angled his face, making him look even more like Bruce. "Hey," Dick said, and the spell was broken: the face was more open, slightly wider, less grim. "Hey, I was hoping you'd come down." And then he caught sight of the duffel slung across Clark's middle, and his half-smile of greeting died. "Oh hell no," he said. 

"Dick, listen—"

"No. Just no. You are not leaving this house because I lost control of my temper. Look, Clark, I'm back living in my dad's house, I've clearly got some issues about that, and tonight, I just managed to access my inner fourteen-year-old, all right? What I said was bullshit, and you—"

"It wasn't."

Dick stood, and pulled the cowl all the way off, ruffling his hair. Parts of it stood straight up, in tufts. Exactly the way Bruce's did, after it had been under the cowl. No wonder Dick was on edge: everyone around him looked at him and saw the shadow of Batman. "It wasn't," Clark repeated. "You and Bruce, you have your own issues to work on. And my being here isn't helping that. Everything that I'm doing for him, you can do for him too."

"Is that so," Dick said, crossing his arms. 

"That's so," Clark continued doggedly. "And you were right, in the hospital. It's not my place. You're his son. I was wrong to step into that place. I'm leaving to give the two of you some space, if you want it."

"And what does Bruce think of this idea?"

Clark hesitated. _You're not saying anything because you can't tell me I'm wrong_ , Clark had said. _I'm not saying anything because I can't say anything but please don't go_ , had been Bruce's reply. Bruce had been sitting on the bedroom sofa, impassive. Clark had slid a hand on his shoulder, from the back. Bruce had seized it. Clark had squeezed his hand. In the perfect twin of Clark's earlier gesture, Bruce had pulled Clark's wrist and pressed his mouth to Clark's palm. 

"Bruce thinks. . . he knows I'm just a phone call away. He needs someone nearby at night, so you might want to head upstairs in a bit. I can—if you want, that is—I can try to patrol Gotham, for a bit, to free you up at nights."

Dick was studying him. "You ready to get back out there?"

"I don't know. What does my team leader think?"

"Your team leader thinks that if you leave this house, you're a goddamn idiot. Whatever Bruce and I have to work out, it doesn't have anything to do with you."

"Is that so," said Clark, echoing Dick's intonation exactly. 

"Your team leader also would like less smart mouth from the League's senior member."

"My team leader should accustom himself to disappointment." Clark glanced up into the reaches of the dark cave, toward a shadowed outcrop of rock above the bank of monitors. "Hello, Jason," he said. 

"Hello, _Clark_ ," said Jason, because every time this kid said his name it sounded like the butt of a joke. There was the flash and twirl of a knife in the dark. He was just lazing up there, like he owned the place, leaning on his elbow, swinging a leg down. Had been here the whole time, had probably been down here talking to Dick for hours. Who the hell knew why Dick tolerated him, or why he kept hanging around Dick. All of Clark's instinctive dislike surged, and he swallowed it down. 

"Ignore him," Dick said, like he was talking about a poorly trained terrier or a leaky faucet. "Please think about what I said. I need you to stay. Bruce needs you to stay. What I said was—"

"What you said were the things you needed to say. You should try that more often. You're right, the house could use more of it." He headed back to the stairs, and nodded at Jason. They were both watching him go. Dick muttered a frustrated curse, and shook his head. Clark was all the way at the upper landing, nearly at the entrance to the cave, when Jason called his name.

"Hey," Jason yelled. "Hang on." He shot some grappling wire and swung over a few stalactites to land gracefully beside Clark. It caught at his heart, all the echoes of Bruce he could see in Jason's training. No one had ever moved like Bruce. Below, Dick had turned back to the monitors, and the cave went about its business. Clark was impatient to be gone from this place that would only ever be Bruce's.

"What is it?" he said.

"I love you like my life."

Clark frowned. "I—beg your pardon?"

Jason rolled his eyes. "I love you like my life." Clark blinked at him, and then realized Jason had not been speaking English.

Jason shrugged. "What, did I say it wrong? Sounded weird as shit, but that's the message Bruce gave me. I was supposed to give it to you, but I kind of forgot about it. He said it back when—let's just say things weren't looking so good for him. Down in the tunnels."

Clark couldn't speak, could barely swallow. Jason was just looking at him. "So? Does it mean something to you?"

Clark's hand gripped the railing until his knuckles were white. Only with an effort did he keep the metal from crumpling under his fingers. "Yes," he said finally. "It means something to me."

He turned and walked out, leaving Jason staring after him. Jason shrugged again, then wired himself back down to his perch above where Dick was working. "Enzakh ishtab iz kin lyagren," he said, trying it out on Dick, who looked up at him and laughed. Jason scowled.

"What? What'd I say? Clark looked at me like I had whipped out my cock or something."

Dick laughed even more. "You basically did, Jay Bird. Where the hell did you pick that up? It's a Kryptonian marriage ritual."

"You're shitting me."

"I'm really not." Dick typed a little more, then pulled off his gloves and stretched back in the chair, looking up at his younger brother with a grin. "So, the summer between ninth and tenth grade, Bruce made me learn Kryptonian—a, because he is a sadistic motherfucker, and also b, because he thought it might be useful to have as a code language, in case we ever needed it. I might not know much beyond first-year grammar, but I know my cultural basics. Those words are the first part of the binding oath in Kryptonian weddings. You say those words, you're done, man, that's your life you just signed away, and according to Kryptonian beliefs, all your successive lives too. Kryptonians took marriage for fucking serious. That whole ritual was full of more bloodplay than some of that porn filed under 'tax returns' on your hard drive, for instance."

Jason twirled his knife in the dark. "Maybe I misjudge Kryptonians. They can't all have been like Clark."

"Mm. Because I'm sure it can't be that you misjudge Clark."

"I'm sure it can't." Jason vaulted down beside him with fluid grace. Dick cocked a curious brow at him. 

"Where'd you pick that phrase up, anyway? Been prying around the linguistic and cultural archives of the cave database again?"

Jason plucked the edge of his blade with his finger, testing it. "Yeah," he said. "That musta been it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is continued in Part Two, [Persephone's Shadow](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1973391).


	7. Chapter 7

This is just to let readers know that the second part of this story continues in another work, _**Persephone's Shadow**_ , which is found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1973391/chapters/4270911). Thank you for reading thus far!


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